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CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY    AND 
SOCIAL    PROGRESS 


CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGY 
AND  SOCIAL  PROGRESS 

THE  BAMPTON  LECTURES  FOR  1905 


BY 


F.     W.     BUSSELL 

BRASENOSE  COtLEGE,   OXFORD 
RECTOR  OF  SISLAND,  NORFOLK 


^    OFTHE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


NEW  YORK 
E.   P.    BUTTON   AND   COMPANY 

31  West  Twenty-third  Street 
1907 


S  6  Bfs 


GENthh. 


TO 

T.  HERBERT  WARREN,  Master  of  Arts 

PRESIDENT  OF  MAGDALEN  COLLEGE 

AND 

VICE-CHANCELLOR    OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD 

THESE    LECTURES    ARE    INSCRIBED 


EXTRACT 
FROM  THE   LAST  WILL  AND  TESTAMENT 

OF   THE   LATE 

REV.    JOHN    BAMPTON, 

CANON  OF  SALISBURY. 

"I  give  and  bequeath  my  Lands  and  Estates  to  the 

Chancellor,  Masters,  and  Scholars  of  the  University  of  Oxford 
for  ever,  to  have  and  to  hold  all  and  singular  the  said  Lands 
and  Estates  upon  trust,  and  to  the  intents  and  purposes  here- 
inafter mentioned ;  that  is  to  say,  I  will  and  appoint  that  the 
Vice-Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Oxford  for  the  time  being 
shall  take  and  receive  all  the  rents,  issues,  and  profits  thereof, 
and  (after  all  taxes,  reparations,  and  necessary  deductions 
made)  that  he  pay  all  the  remainder  to  the  endowment  of 
eight  Divinity  Lecture  Sermons,  to  be  established  for  ever  in 
the  said  University,  and  to  be  performed  in  the  manner 
following : 

"  I  direct  and  appoint  that  upon  the  first  Tuesday  in  Easter 
Term,  a  Lecturer  be  yearly  chosen  by  the  Heads  of  Colleges 
only,  and  by  no  others,  in  the  room  adjoining  to  the  Printing- 
House,  between  the  hours  of  ten  in  the  morning  and  two  in 
the  afternoon,  to  preach  eight  Divinity  Lecture  Sermons,  the 
year  following,  at  St.  Mary's  in  Oxford,  between  the  com- 
mencement of  the  last  month  in  Lent  Term,  and  the  end  of 
the  third  week  in  Act  Term. 


vi  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

"  Also  I  direct  and  appoint,  that  the  eight  Divinity  Lecture 
Sermons  shall  be  preached  upon  either  of  the  following 
Subjects — to  confirm  and  establish  the  Christian  Faith,  and 
to  confute  all  heretics  and  schismatics  —  upon  the  Divine 
authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures — upon  the  authority  of  the 
writings  of  the  primitive  Fathers,  as  to  the  faith  and  practice 
of  the  primitive  Church — upon  the  Divinity  of  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ — upon  the  Divinity  of  the  Holy  Ghost — 
upon  the  Articles  of  the  Christian  Faith,  as  comprehended  in 
the  Apostles'  and  Nicene  Creeds. 

"Also  I  direct  that  thirty  copies  of  the  eight  Divinity 
Lecture  Sermons  shall  be  always  printed  within  two  months 
after  they  are  preached ;  and  one  copy  shall  be  given  to  the 
Chancellor  of  the  University,  and  one  copy  to  the  head  of 
every  College,  and  one  copy  to  the  Mayor  of  the  City  of  Oxford, 
and  one  copy  to  be  put  into  the  Bodleian  Library;  and  the 
expense  of  printing  them  shall  be  paid  out  of  the  revenue  of 
the  Land  or  Estates  given  for  establishing  the  Divinity  Lecture 
Sermons ;  and  the  Preacher  shall  not  be  paid,  nor  entitled  to 
the  revenue,  before  they  are  printed. 

"  Also  I  direct  and  appoint,  that  no  person  shall  be  qualified 
to  preach  the  Divinity  Lecture  Sermons,  unless  he  hath  taken 
the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts  at  least,  in  one  of  the  two  Uni- 
versities of  Oxford  or  Cambridge ;  and  that  the  same  person 
shall  never  preach  the  Divinity  Lecture  Sermons  twice." 


PREFACE 

My  dear  Mr.  V ice-Chancellor,— There  is  some- 
thing peculiarly  fitting,  I  think,  in  this  dedication  to 
yourself,  which  you  are  good  enough  to  accept.  You 
were  my  first  tutor  in  this  University;  and  you  now 
worthily  represent  to  the  world  its  authority,  its  tradi- 
tions, its  learning,  its  religious  spirit.  Your  kind  words 
of  appreciation  after  the  first  lecture  of  the  course  did 
much  to  encourage  me. 

I  began  with  a  profound  sense  of  the  chasm  which 
separates  theory  and  practical  life :  of  the  increasing 
difficulty  we  find  in  justifying  or  explaining  the  moral 
scruple,  the  generous  venture,  the  religious  hope.  In 
spite  of  our  disclaimers,  we  are  to-day  *  Galileans,' 
betrayed  by  our  phrase  and  accent ;  pensioners  of  a  past 
tradition,  a  past  belief,  which  some  try  in  vain  to  adapt 
to  the  altered  conditions  of  knowledge  and  the  new 
teaching  of  science, — some  again  maintain  unquestioned, 
in  illogical  content,  side  by  side  with  alien  facts  and 
theories  of  life,  silent  now,  indeed,  but  none  the  less  un- 
compromisingly hostile.  Few  seem  to  me  to  realize  how 
far  we  have  drifted  on  the  downward  grade,  towards  a 
purely  arbitrary  state,  which  is  *  no  respecter  of  persons ' ; 
— towards  an  unknowable  God  or  Root  of  Being,  which 
is  after  all  mere  Force,  and  gives  no  answer  to  prayer. 

I  find  in  the  mouth  of  every  one  a  vague  word, 
'  democracy,'  a  term  (whether  as  fact  or  hope  or  move- 
ment) to  which  I  have  hitherto  repeatedly  failed  to 
attach  a  clear  and  precise  meaning.  I  see  personal 
liberty  everywhere  threatened,  personal  value  everywhere 

vu 


viii  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

denied;  and  men  set  aside  as  an  old  wives'  fable  the 
Gospel-teaching  of  the  worth  of  souls.  Many  may  find 
wearisome  my  constant  retrospect  on  the  past  records  of 
thinkers  or  statesmen ;  but  I  must  plead  in  excuse  the 
gravity  of  the  lessons  I  find  there,  the  continuous,  un- 
broken life  of  European  development,  each  phase  big 
with  its  future,  the  secret  yet  very  real  influence  of 
academic  speculation,  as  it  gradually  filters  down  to  the 
level  of  practice. 

Too  many  seem  to-day  to  approach  social  questions 
with  much  sympathy  but  no  genuine  conviction,  with 
but  little  knowledge  of  average  human  nature,  and  less 
of  its  past  experience  or  discoveries.  The  Gospel,  the 
People,  the  average  man ; — these  to-day  are  the  *  weaker 
brethren.'  It  is  my  aim  to  show  how  general  welfare  is 
bound  up  with  the  faiths  and  hopes  of  Christian  belief; 
and  again,  how  the  general  welfare  can  only  rightly  be 
secured  by  justice  to  the  particular,  by  respecting  the 
units  which  make  up  the  whole :  a  heap  composed  of 
valueless  atoms  is  itself  without  value. 

In  the  first  lecture,  I  deal  with  the  function  and 
limits  of  Christian  Apologetic, — making  it  clear,  I  trust, 
that  the  aim  is  no  symmetry  of  speculative  reconstruc- 
tion, no  triumph  of  merely  dialectical  overthrow.  In 
the  next  three,  man's  relations  are  traced  to  himself,  to 
God,  to  the  Body  Politic :  the  second  examines  the 
simplest  rudiments  of  his  moral  instinct  (prior  to  reflec- 
tion), his  amazing  enterprise  of  unselfishness, — that  is, 
if  overmuch  meditation  does  not  convince  him  that  all 
effort  is  fruitless.  In  the  third,  he  is  shown  in  his 
attempts  to  find  God, — not  as  Power  or  as  Wisdom,  but 
as  personal  friend  :  (it  is  this  personal  side  in  religion 
which  is  prominent  throughout.)  In  the  fourthy  his 
social  development  is  traced;  and  the  conceptions 
contrasted  of  the  mediaeval  and  the  modern  State. 

Thus,  in  the  former  half  of  the  course,  we  confront  the 
ordinary  man   at  his  average    level,  in   his    simplest 


PREFACE  IX 

impulses  to  righteous  conduct  and  religious  hope  and 
belief;  we  see  him  also  in  his  social  development  under 
the  guidance  of  an  unconscious  evolution,  and  quite  apart 
from  the  control  of  calculating  statesmen.  We  examine 
his  condition  to-day ;  and  in  the  fifths  discover  the  vast 
but  largely  unacknowledged  .debt  to  Christian  influences, 
and  recognise  the  vainness  of  the  common  presumption, 
that  Christian  ethics  will  outlast  Christian  dogma.  In 
the  sixthy  we  trace  one  indispensable  presupposition  of 
genuine  religion ;  worth  and  work  must  be  guaranteed 
to  the  individual ;  the  conflict  must  be  real,  the  victory 
one  to  which  each  contributes,  in  which  each  will  some 
day  share.  The  seventh  dwells  in  greater  detail  upon 
a  subject  already  intimated  in  earlier  lectures,  —  the 
curiously  downward  grade  of  European  thought, 
scientific  and  political,  in  the  nineteenth  century, — the 
strange  denial  of  all  humanistic  standards,  —  the  de- 
moralising of  the  State,  and  the  demoralising  of  God. 
In  the  last^  I  plead  for  the  only  alliance  which  can  give 
aim  and  self-confidence  to  the  *  democratic'  movement 
so  strangely  arrested  to-day,  any  stability  to  European 
society  and  culture : — The  Gospel  and  the  People. 

For,  as  it  must  seem,  it  is  the  Gospel  alone,  which  in 
the  face  of  scientific  facts  and  intellectualist  theory, 
still  clings  to  the  belief  in  the  eternal  value  of  the  simple 
and  humble  soul ;  and,  while  allowing  that  every  venture 
of  moral  action  or  religious  aspiration  is  and  must  be 
an  *  act  of  faith,'  still  encourages  those  for  whom  to-day 
we  have  no  hope,  no  consolation,  and  no  use,  to  believe 
in  God's  goodness  and  their  own  imperishable  worth. — 
Believe  me,  dear  Mr.  Vice-Chancellor,  very  sincerely 
yours, 

F.  W.  B. 

Mundham  House^ 

near  Norwich^ 

Christmas  ^  1906. 


CONTENTS 

LECTURE  I 

Function  and  Limit  of  Christian  Apologetic 

iroifiot  d^  ael  Tpos  diroXoylav  iravrl  rt^  alrovvTi  v/ms  \6yov 
irepl  TTJs  iv  vfilv  iXirlSos. — I  Pet.  iii.  15. 

PAGE 

§  I.  Difficulty  of  Religious  Apologetic;  between  Rationalism  and 
orthodoxy  :  the  latter  rejoices  sometimes  in  magic,  antithesis, 
defiance  .......         2 

§  2.  African  paradox  rejected :  Christian  teaching  lays  emphasis  on 
reconciliation :  modern  spirit  abandons  uncompromising 
dualism  but  also  refuses  to  eliminate  either  side  of  the 
complementary  Truth :  this  typical  of  the  Alexandrine 
School  ........         3 

§  3.  But  sharp  contrast  is  more  popular,  and  the  over-confidence  of 
subtle  logic  :  religion  puts  no  premium  upon  superior  in- 
telligence :  Gospel  message  simple  and  universal,  closely 
allied  with  true  '  Democracy '  ....         5 

§  4.  Resumes : — the  Christian  apologist  cannot  hope  to  satisfy  both 
the  philosopher  and  the  plain  man  :  the  pursuit  of  abstract 
'  Truth,'  and  the  consciousness  limited  to  feelings,  needs,  and 
personal  experience  :  real  audience  of  the  preacher  the  poor, 
the  sinful,  the  doubting,  and  the  ignorant         .  .  .6 

B.  Part  ii.  §  5.  Wide  scope  of  the  following  discussion :  relations  of 
Church  and  world  :  tendencies  of  modern  thought  and  modern 
society  :  precarious  position  in  morals  no  less  than  in  dogma  : 
sympathy  of  the  Greek  Fathers  with  intellectual  development : 
the  Latin  Church-State ;  authority  and  non-possumus  in  con- 
trast     ........         8 

§  6.  Mischief  of  mediaeval  preoccupation  with  the  A(57os-doctrine  : 
humanity  met  only  on  its  higher  planes  :  supposed  identity  of 
Philosophy  and  Religion  .....         9 

§  7.  Apologetic  narrowed  into  an  attempt  to  satisfy  the  speculative 
reason  :  importance  of  the  Nominalist  movement :  discontent 
with  dogmatic  proof  rather  than  with  dogma   .  .  .10 

§8.  Violent  divorce  of  the  two  before  the  Reformation:  reformers 
aloof  from  secular  wisdom :  Leibnitz  attempts  to  conciliate : 


xii  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


PAGE 


simplification  of  the  '  credenda '  during  the  eighteenth  century 
to  a  bare  religion  of  Nature      .  .  .  .  .12 

§  9.  The  arbiter  still  Universal  Reason :  general  acceptance  by 
educated  and  clerical  circles  of  the  new  belief :  sudden  and 
unexpected  emergence  of  the  '  will  of  the  people '  .  .       13 

§  10.  Superficial  optimism  of  the  Age  of  Enlightenment :  profound 
ignorance  of  average  human  nature :  claims  of  the  heart 
against  the  head  :  only  recent  recognition  of  the  emotional  or 
sub-conscious  forces  which  sway  society  .  .  •       ^5 

§11.  Real  simplicity  of  the  motives  of  revolution,  economic  rather 
than  social :  *  will  of  the  people '  reacts  towards  Csesarism 
and  efficiency  .  .  .  .  .  .16 

§  12,  Sum :  the  apologist  resembles  Telemachus  between  the 
gladiators :  the  attempted  reconcilement  or  identification 
of  Philosophy  and  Religion  has  twice  failed :  are  there 
symptoms  of  a  new  disappointment  to-day?  .  '17 


LECTURE  II 

The  Moral  Instinct:  Man  finds  Himself 
"Lord,  what  is  man?" — Ps.  cxliv.  3. 

1.  Human  nature  and  the  sanctions  of  conduct:  relation  of  the 

conscious  unit  to  himself  (subsequently,  to  God  and  to  the 
State).  .......       19 

2.  Our  aims  and  impulses  independent  of  our  conscious  volition 

and  not  originated  by  our  reflection :  feelings  before  judg- 
ments :  impotence  of  Reason  in  the  sphere  of  the  particular  : 
the  Gospel  the  only  possible  arbiter  between  Science  and 
Democracy     .  .  .  .  .  .  .20 

3.  All  enlightenment  and  reform  tends  to  Subjectivism  :   always 

implies  sceptical  reflection  upon  the  sanctions  of  moral  and 
social  rule :  consequent  danger  to  the  civic  ideal    .  .21 

4.  Such   periods   of   Individualism    followed    by    reaction   to  a 

Universal :  man's  social  and  (originally)  unselfish  nature  may 

be  compared  to  St.  Christopher  in  the  legend  .  .       22 

5.  Thought  has  been  a  solvent :  prevalence  of  doubt,  acquiescence, 

and  resignation :  man's  true  function,  to  return  with  Soc- 
rates to  earthly  duties  .  .  .  .  .24 

i  6.  The  explanations  of  Thought  lag  behind  common  practice : 
in  the  field  of  men's  hopes  and  aspirations,  which  carry  them 
again  towards  the  life  of  action,  we  cannot  hope  for  accurate 
evidence         .  .  .  .  .  .  '25 

\*J.  Motives  of  'moral  action'  classified:  (i)  pursuit  of  broken 
series  of  pleasures  :  (2)  active  social  energy  under  control  of 
unquestioned  custom :  (3)  resignation  to  a  Divine  order : 
(4)  pure  individual  interest  in  untroubled  calm  (the  explana- 


CONTENTS  xiii 


tion,  *  obedience  to  law  as  law,'  omitted  because  it  cannot  be 

a  final  motive)  .  .  .  .  .  .26 

§  8.  Divorce  of  virtue  and  happiness  after  Socrates :  utilitarianism 
disappointed :  Plato  driven  back  upon  supersensuous 
sanctions         .  .  .  .  .  .  •27 

§9.  Large  concessions  by  Aristotle  to  popular  views,  and  the 
standard  of  the  average  man :  prevailing  sadness  of  later 
Greek  reflection  on  life  ....  .       28 

\  10.  The  Gospel  rejects  the  dualism  and  sharp  contrast  into  which 
Hellenism  has  fallen :  function  of  the  Church  as  supporter 
of  the  civic  ideal :  mediaeval  State-sanction  of  morality  .       29 

J II,  Ill-adjusted  fabric  of  Aristotelian  and  Christian  elements  in 
mediaeval  ethics  :  Feudalism  and  Casuistry  fill  in  the  gap 
between  theoretical  demands  and  actual  fulfilment :  wideness 
of  chasm  between  ideal  and  practice  .  .  .  '30 

\  12.  Arbitrariness  of  the  dictates  of  morality  in  Scotus :  morality, 
submission  to  a  personal  sovereign,  as  a  condition  of  future 
bliss    ........      31 

\  13.  Domination,  in  contrast,  of  the  *  Law  of  Nature'  from  1600  to 
1800  among  the  *  enlightened '  :  frank  egoism  during  the 
eighteenth  century,  in  revenge  for  the  long  suppression  of 
individual  interests  for  the  general  welfare  in  the  preceding 
age     .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .32 

5 14.  In  spite  of  the  imperfections  of  its  allied  philosophy,  Christianity 
the  only  universal  and  democratic  power :  no  other  scheme 
understands  man's  inner  nature,  characterised  as  it  is 
neither  by  pure  selfishness  nor  by  meaningless  devotion  to 
the  unknown  .  .  .  .  .  .  •34 


LECTURE  III 

The  Religious  Impulse  :  Man  finds  God 

**  Blessed  be  he  that  hath  the  God  of  Jacob  for  his  help,  and  whose 
hope  is  in  the  Lord  his  God ;  who  made  heaven  and  earth, 
the  sea,  and  all  that  therein  is ;  who  keepeth  His  promise 
for  ever."— Ps.  cxlvi.  4,  5. 

§  I.  Relations  of  God  and  man,  not  as  conceived  in  the  great  world- 
religions,  but  as  experienced  by  the  believer :  upward  path 
from  lower  to  higher  stage  of  communion  (caution  against  a 
prevalent  and  mischievous  looseness  of  assumption)    .  .       36 

§  2.  Earliest  stage,  fear  of  the  unknown :  second^  discovery  of  a  Divine 
protector  somehow  accessible :  thirds  worshipper  becomes  a 
'  fellow-worker  '  with  God  (sense  of  dependence,  of  estrange- 
ment, and  of  reconciliation,  in  the  universal  paradox  of  re- 
ligious experience)      .  .  .  .  .  '38 


xiv  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


§  3.  Service  in  a  cause  beyond  self,  a  primitive  impulse  not  due  to 
reflection  :  the  chief  spring  of  religious  influences  :  self  only 
forgotten  because  of  unfailing  assurance  that  in  the  end  it  must 
come  by  its  rights        .  .  .  .  .  .40 

§  4.  What  kind  of  cause  ?  immaterial ;  and  not  necessarily  *  moral ' : 
religious  feeling  independent  of  morals,  often  subversive : 
temper  of  the  missionary  and  the  soldier  alike :  both  confi- 
dent of  inclusion  in  the  coming  triumph  .  .  •41 

§  5-  Within  this  division  many  degrees  of  willing  service,  from  Thug 
zealot  to  Christian  martyr  :  gradual  expansion  of  the  scene  of 
conflict :  share  in  the  ultimate  success,  for  the  humble  follower 
a  satisfaction  of  sense  of  justice  rather  than  selfish  calculation  .       42 

§  6.  The  fourth  stage,  in  which  conception  of  purpose  or  process 
rejected  as  unsuitable  to  the  Divine  :  mystical  surrender  to  the 
eternal  and  unchangeable  :  the  religion  of  the  greater  part  of 
mankind  .  .  .  .  .  .  -43 

§  7.  Singular  identity  of  doctrine  in  East  and  West,  pagan  and 
Christian :  the  changing  and  particular  as  mere  illusion  and 
mirage  :  goal  of  nothingness  (in  practice,  mystics  more  enter- 
prising and  sympathetic  than  their  creed)        .  .  •45 

§  8.  The  two  demands  of  the  religious  consciousness — God  must  be  a 
helper  and  rewarder  in  the  strife,  and  a  place  of  rest  and  peace 
(Western  society  inextricably  bound  up  with  the  former 
notion) :  devotee  finds  in  God  help,  encouragement,  and 
only  at  last  repose     .  .  .  .  .  .46 

§  9.  Conception  of  God :  precarious  tie  which  binds  religious  and 
moral  feeling :  a  signal  error  of  the  eighteenth  century  to 
identify  religion  and  morality  (or  religion  and  philosophy) : 
religion  has  to  provide  exemption  and  immunity,  to  assure 
worshipper  of  special  privilege  .  .  .  '47 

1 10.  Qualities  demanded  in  a  deity  :  curious  pre-occupation  of  divines 
with  logical  attributes,  or  with  notions  of  power  and  wisdom 
to  which,  strictly,  the  worshipper  is  indifferent :  cheerful 
sacrifice  for  a  lost  cause  (in  Norse  myth) :  stimulating  effect 
of  long-deferred  even  uncertain  success         .  .  .48 

in.  We  deal  with  religion  as  contrasted  with  theology:  aloofness 
of  thought  or  theology  from  average  impulses  impossible  to- 
day :  origin  of  religious  feeling  selfish  :  an  appeal  for  suspen- 
sion of  law,  not  the  recognition  of  its  undeviating  rigour  :  the 
later  willing  service  due  to  no  quixotic  surrender  of  value  but 
to  perfect  trustfulness :  curious  delusion  of  those  who  would 
transfer  unselfish  loyalty  into  a  realm  where  there  is  no  longer 
a  master,  a  purpose,  or  a  work  .  .  .  -49 

!  12.  Denial  of  worth  or  meaning  to  conscious  life  in  current  systems 
of  the  universe  :  surrender  to  the  unknown  :  at  variance  with 
what  is  best  in  social  or  political  movement  in  recent  years   .       5 1 


CONTENTS  XV 

LECTURE  IV 

The  Social  State:  Medi/eval  and  Modern 

*•  What  shall  one  then  answer  the  messengers  of  the  nation?  That 
the  Lord  hath  founded  Zion,  and  the  poor  of  His  people 
shall  trust  in  it." — ISA.  xiv.  32. 

PAGE 

§  I.  Aim  of  the  series  :  standard  of  worth  applied  to  the  Christian 
conception  of  the  Universe  (as  in  eighteenth  century,  logical 
consistency,  in  nineteenth,  historic  credibility  of  the  Doctrine) : 
reason^  fact^  and  use  :  importance  of  former  not  denied,  but 
present  discussion  chiefly  concerned  with  the  last :  less  scruple 
to-day  in  applying  Utilitarian  standard,  in  a  democratic  age 
which  will  soon  know  no  other  test     .  .  .  •54 

§  2.  Interrogation  of  the  recent  course  of  social  development :  error 
of  the  historical  philosophers  after  the  Revolution  :  *  the  goal 
achieved  or  within  view ' :  their  *  Reason '  only  a  name  to 
cover  the  development  of  unconscious  and  unknown  forces : 
sense  of  helplessness  abroad    .  .  .  .  '55 

§  3.  Underlying  principles  of  Western  development  in  mediaeval 
times  :  as  philosophy  is  mainly  individualist,  so  Church  always 
social :  mistaken  conception  of  the  Roman  Church-State       .       57 

§  4.  Conspicuous  merits  of  the  mediaeval  State  :  unity  and  reason- 
ableness of  the  Church  :  its  democratic  basis :  its  genuine 
claim  to  direct  and  ennoble  every  department  of  secular  life, 
every  variation  of  individual  character  or  rank  .  .       59 

§  5.  No  abrupt  dualism,  of  law,  natural  or  Divine,  physical  or  moral : 
Church  less  antithetic  than  Aristotle :  in  the  decay  of  the 
Roman  system,  in  the  proved  emptiness  of  papal  and  imperial 
claims,  the  *  Law  of  Nature '  supersedes  the  Church  as  a  guide      61 

§6.  Machiavelli  and  Luther  creators  or  pioneers  of  the  modern 
State  :  conception  of  the  State  gradually  demoralised  :  Church 
retires  from  contact  with  the  world :  disparagement  of  the 
units  which  compose  the  whole  .  .  .  .62 

§  7.  Decay  of  reverence  towards  the  State  :  government  a  revocable 
contract :  sole  duty  efficiency  :  undisguised  selfishness  of  the 
new  period  of  reconstruction  (Leo  x.,  Spinoza,  Hobbes) : 
utility  in  a  certain  sphere  (to  keep  the  poor  quiet)  contemptu- 
ously allowed  to  the  Church   .  .  .  .  '63 

§8.  French  Revolution  due  to  divorce  of  Enlightenment  from 
sympathy  with  primitive  human  nature  :  curious  ignorance  of 
the  human  heart  and  average  motives  among  eighteenth- 
century  philosophers :  their  aim  not  to  admit  the  people  to 
freedom,  but  to  capture  the  autocracy  of  the  State      .  .       65 

§  9.  Classical  antiquity  and  the  modern  State  aristocratic :  sharp 
contrast  to  this  in  the  Christian-Teutonic  deference  to  the  indi- 
vidual :  decay  of  belief  in  worth  of  units,  parallel  with  nominal 


XVI  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


extension  of  popular  rights :  value  of  the  conception  of  heaven 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  not  to  distract  attention  from  secular 
concerns,  but  to  restrain  the  ends  of  mere  organic  efficiency, 
to  obtain  considerate  treatment  for  the  weaker  .  .       66 

§  lo.  Final  issue  (Machiavelli,  Hobbes,  Luther,  Rousseau)  in  irre- 
concilable hostility ;  Sovereignty  of  the  State,  Sovereignty  of 
the  Individual :  French  Revolution  a  protest  of  rudimentary 
feeling  against  a  sacrifice  of  the  helpless  to  an  unknown  cause  : 
Kant  reconquered  primitive  truth,  against  the  Enlightenment': 
differentia  of  man,  not  thought  but  moral  action         .  ,      67 


LECTURE  V 

The  Modern  Age  as  Pensioner  of  the  Past 

"  Surely  thou  art  one  of  them ;  for  thou  art  a  Galilean,  and  thy 
speech  agreeth  thereto." — Mark  xiv.  70. 
"  The  just  shall  live  by  faith."— Rom.  i.  17. 

§  I.  Simple  experiences  and  impulses  of  average  man  not  to  be  lost 
sight  of  in  tracing  political  generalities  :  universal  application 
of  the  Gospel  message  :  whole  scheme  of  Western  life  bound 
up  with  certain  prepossessions  or  matters  of  faith :  their 
serious  peril  at  the  present  time :  unreflecting  morality  not 
so  much  in  danger  :  emotional  basis  of  morality  more  secure 
than  any  theoretic  basis  .  .  .  .  '70 

§  2.  Steady  debasement  of  the  moral  sentiments,  origin  and  sanction, 
during  the  past  century:  the  three  great  *  unities,'  Nature, 
State,  God,  divested  of  all  *  moral '  implication  :  the  Divine 
relieved  of  its  few  remaining  human  attributes :  a  substitute 
for  '  God '  proposed  which  cannot  be  an  object  of  worship     .       72 

§  3.  We  cannot  afford  to  eliminate  the  one  quality  ( *  goodness ')  which 
makes  conception  of  God  at  all  intelligible  :  not  as  a  vague 
stream  ortendency:  the  minimum  of  rehgious  belief — a  righteous 
and  conscious  power  giving  to  each  his  due,  and  maintaining  the 
conflict  as  a  real  issue,  not  an  unmeaning  gladiatorial  show    .       73 

§  4.  Objection — *  impertinent  to  revive  such  blind  faith ' :  faith  (in 
our  discussion)  is  rather  loyal  self-surrender  to  a  cause  not  yet 
won :  a  belief  or  sympathy  powerful  enough  to  stimulate 
action  :  the  true  *  Age  of  Faith '  the  present  day :  immediacy 
of  Church  authority  and  cool  rationalism  of  Middle  Ages       .       74 

§  5.  Difficult  to  rise  to  any  confident  moral  autonomy :  most  men 
are  content  (with  Hegel)  to  acquiesce  in  the  general  moral 
sense  of  community :  any  advance  beyond  conventional  custom 
and  usefulness  is  a  venture  of  faith,  on  very  slender  evidence  : 
moral  conduct  as  defiance  of  natural  law  :  in  the  positive 
content  of  the  moral  Law  we  are  mere  pensioners  of  the  past       76 

§  6.  Every  act  which  is  something  more  than  conformity  to  tra- 


CONTENTS  xvii 


ditional  observance  or  obvious    calculation  of   gain   bears 
witness  to  conviction  of  purpose  in  the  world  :  this  obstin- 
ately impenetrable  to  reflection  :   phrases  only  conceal  our 
profound  ignorance  :  is  the  wager  *  unreasonable '  ?    .  .       77 

§  7.  Complete  instability  of  all  moral  notions  beyond  the  deceptive 
routine  of  society :   delusive  promises  of  race  perfectibility : 
abandonment  of  individual  (as  worth  and  character)  to  cosmic 
process :  tyranny  of  abstractions  which  are  mere  human  pre- 
judices and  have  no  counterpart  outside  his  servile  brain 
(Stirner)  .......       78 

§  8.  The  practical  life  with  its  business  sympathies  and  enthusiasm 
unaffected  by  the  hopeless  outlook  of  speculation  (but  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  ensuing  torpor  may  not  spread 
from  the  educated  to  the  ignorant  classes  :  present  system  of 
morals  in  that  case  doomed)   .  .  .  .  •       79 

§  9.  This  overriding  of  strict  logic  in  the  world  of  practice  and 
common  sense,  characteristic  feature  of  English  thought  and 
statecraft :   we  find  it  hard   to  justify  our  interest  and  our 
work,  just  as  reflection  makes  us  blush  at  our  charity  :  tear- 
ing away  of  many  sentimental  veils  and  disguises  to-day  which 
screened  primitive  impulse      .  .  .  .  .81 

§  10.  Two  extremes,  cynical  greed  and  idealist  surrender :  between 
these,  indispensable  factor  in  life,  the  social  and  personal  in- 
fluence of  the  Church :  provides  not  an  answer  to  curiosity 
but  an  adequate  stimulus  to  action  and  endeavour :  dualistic 
tendency  to  separate  the  domains  of  certainty  and  of  hope  .  83 
§  II.  Sense  of  personal  value,  agency,  and  worth  still  subsists  .       84 

§  12.  The  incentive  to-day  is  still,  as  ever,  voluntary  service  in  what 
is  conceived  as  the  Highest  Cause  :  the  selfish  man  unnatural 
except  as  product  of  reflection  :  amid  wreck  of  ideals  we  still 
pay  an  instinctive  homage  to  a  certain  type  of  life  :  we  refuse 
to  obey  unless  we  can  love  and  understand  :  this  understand- 
ing largely  a  venture  of  faith  .  .  .  ,  .84 


LECTURE  VI 
•Worth  and  Work':  Striving  of  Genuine  Value 

'A5eX0oi,  ^(b  ifiavTOP  oi  Xoyl^ofiai  KaTei\rf</>4vai'  %v  5^,  rb.  fih  ovlffo) 
itriKavdapSfievos,  rots  S^  ifiirpoa-dev  iTreKreivofieuos,  Karh  ffKoirhv 
didjKb)  iirl  t6  Ppa^eiov  ttjs  &poj  KXrjaeus.  "  This  one  thing  I  do, 
forgetting  those  things  which  are  behind,  and  reaching  forth 
unto  those  things  which  are  before,  I  press  toward  the  mark 
for  the  prize  of  the  high  calling." — Phil.  iii.  13. 

§  I.  Subject :  usefulness  not  frufk  of  Christian  religion :  curious 
misconception  of  religion  as  anti-social  and  abstentionist :  this 


xviii         THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


should  not  (if  true  in  the  past)  apply  in  the  future  :  likelihood 
of  a  retreat  of  the  religious  consciousness  into  itself    .  .       88 

§  2.  Necessary  alliance  of  Church  and  Society  :  the  '  use '  of  religion 
determines  its  expansion  and  survival :   reflective  process, 
coercive  argument  merely  secondary  and  subordinate :   the 
Will-to-live,  irrespective  of  reflection,  aims  at  Satisfaction  :  at 
its  zenith  in  Man,  becomes  a  demand  for  worth  and  work : 
relation  of  this  to  the  post-Kantian  movement  .  .       90 

§  3.  Must  this  impulse  to  life  be  checked,  when  it  reaches  the  level 
of  self-consciousness  ?    Christian  faith  denies :   our  modern 
science  and  its  increasing  reluctance  to  do  more  than  record 
series  and  chronicle  facts  :  we  are  quite  ignorant  of  the  laws 
which  govern  rise  and  decay  of  nations :  the  unit  alone  an 
actual  experience         .  .  .  .  .  •       9^ 

§  4.  Limit  to-day  placed  upon  ambitious  schemes  :  content  to  secure 
personal  and  individual  welfare,  and  right  immediate  wrong  : 
one  cause  of  this  more  modest  outlook  the  doctrine,  '  man  as 
the  sport  of  unknown  powers ' :  to  the  knight-errant  succeeds 
type  of  Laocoon :   another  cause  is  the  democratic  demand 
for  immediacy,  after  too  long  waiting  {fatalism  and  savagery) .       93 
§  5.  Current  of  egoism  arrested  in  the  seven  teeth  century  :  mechanism 
supplants  teleology :   the  individual  in  philosophy  and  the 
Commonwealth  is  subordinated  to  the  Universal,  to  Sub- 
stance ;  humility  takes  place  of  self-assertion  :  rise  and  signifi- 
cance of  Deism  .  .  .  .  .  '95 

§  6.  Speculations  of  Behmen  :  problem  of  the  ordinary  man  :  distance 
of  God,  indifference  of  Nature, — he  takes  note  of  evil  and 
pain  neglected  in  the  Great  Systems :  to  him  we  owe  con- 
ceptions of  antithesis  and  evolution :  striving  in  nature  real, 
not  fictitious    .  .  .  .  .  .  .97 

§  7.  Frank  mechanical  naturalism  of  the  Great  Systems  disclosed  :  all 
values  expelled  from  a  world  of  eternal  necessity  and  (so-called) 
Reason  :  Leibnitz  attempts  to  justify  to  the  individual  (for  no 
teleology  which  stops  short  of  him  can  be  accepted  in  equity) : 
his  memorable  decision  not  to  capitulate  to  Positivism  .       99 

§  8.  Return  of  anthropocentric  standard  ;  '  not  man  by  nature,  but 
nature  by  man ' :  takes  up  the  old  Renaissance  impulse  to  per- 
sonal realisation  submerged  under  the  Great  Systems :  Being 
and  working  are  the  same  thing  :  empty  mythology  of  change- 
less being  gives  way :  worth  of  the  exceptional,  of  idiosyncrasy  1 00 
§  9.  At  every  point  the  world  a  striving  :  possibilities  press  forward 
to  justify  themselves :  *  while  still  man  strives,  still  must  he 
stray ' :  opposition  to  Calvinistic  autocrat,  to  Hobbes' 
Leviathan  :  Sympathy,  not  a  craven  compromise  or  surrender, 
but  natural :  development  of  self,  not  retirement  from  world, 
but  work  in  Society,  according  to  one's  faculties,  respecting 
the  rights  of  others     .  .  ,  .  .  .10) 


CONTENTS  XIX 


§  10.  Great  reaction  also  even  in  the  eighteenth  century  against  the 
claims  of  *  Reason'  (as  universal,  impersonal,  conceding  nothing 
t©  the  individual) :  continual  criticism  of  Rationalistic  compla- 
cence :  powerful  influence  of  Rousseau  upon  Kant     .  .103 

§11.  Kant  restates  the  value  of  the  plain  man:  free  moral  action, 
the  one  common  indispensable  element  in  human  nature  :  his 
principles  incompatible  with  Bureaucratic  autocracy,  or  un- 
limited Sovereignty  of  the  State :  undying  feud  of  scientific 
and  'democratic'  {i.e.  religious)  conceptions  of  man  .  .     104 

§  12.  The  Neo- Kantian  development ;  individual  ousted  from  his 
rights  :  rapid  degeneracy  in  the  notion  of  the  Source  of  Life  ; 
unconscious,  unmoral,  unknowable  :  unavailing  pursuit  in  the 
complexity  of  Science  and  experience  of  a  Unity  :  the  Gospel 
alone  comprehensive,  alone  able  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  the 
individual,  and  the  demands  of  Reason  .  ,  .     105 

LECTURE  VII 

Agnosticism  :  Arbitrary  State,  Unknowable  God 

'Ayvd}<TT(p  0e(p. — Acts  xvii.  23. 

"Is  there  knowledge  with  the  most  High?" 

§  I.  Ontology,  the  great  object  of  search  throughout  the  nineteenth 
century  :  province  after  province  wrested  from  theology  and 
claimed  for  unprejudiced  inquiry  into  fact :  a  minimum  of 
prerogative  still  conceded  in  Deism,  or  the  religion  of 
Nature  :  revival  of  Platonic  immanence,  God  not  distant  but 
ubiquitous :  Jupiter  est  quodcunque  vides^  quodcunque  moverts  : 
this  attempted  identification  (Acard  0i5(riy,  /card  \(yyov)  always 
strained :  continuous  protest  from  the  ethical  side   .  .108 

§2.  Kant  and  Fichte  the  last  to  approach  life  and  its  problem 
from  the  moral  point  of  view :  impossible  to  resume  that 
attitude :  men  will  not  express  truth  in  terms  of  necessity 
and  restriction  (duty,  law,  obligation) :  morality  and  reason 
play  an  insignificant  part  in  the  Universe  :  in  the  Neo- 
Kantian  mythology,  man  banished  as  a  moral  agent :  and 
even  Fichte's  '  moral  order '  a  mere  pious  postulate  which 
stubborn  facts  did  not  respect  .  .  .  .110 

§  3.  Warm  alliance  of  Idealist  and  Naturalist :  pantheism  not 
to  be  distinguished  from  positivism  :  to  some  minds  this 
glozing  of  blind  mechanism  by  pious  terminology  will  always 
seem  ultimate  truth  :  we  would  only  point  out  that  this 
qualifying  of  the  given  as  the  good  or  as  the  'rational'  is 
purely  an  act  of  Faith  .  .  .  .  .112 

§4.  Objection:  'is  not  Hegelianism  a  vindication  of  Reason?' 
It  cannot  be  distinguished  from  Force  or  the  Unconscious  : 
it  soon  becomes  mere  name  to  cover  a  process  of  develop- 


XX     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


ment,  without  relation  to  human  mind  or  conscience,  only 
intelligible  in  its  series,  not  in  its  issue,  or  its  purport        .     113 

§5.  Development  of  the  Neo-Kantians :  the  *thing-in-itself' : 
the  Romantic  era :  a  mystical  faculty  apprehends  an  imaginary 
Unity  for  which  ordinary  reason  is  insufficient :  end  of  era 
of  Revolution  and  individual  protest :  stages  of  declension 
towards  Agnosticism:  the  Real  =  the  ethical  (Fichte)  =  the 
rational  (Hegel)  =  the  *  given  and  irrational'  (later  induction 
of  Science  and  Pessimism)      .  .  .  .  'US 

§  6.  Fichte  already  begins  to  disparage  or  to  despair  of  the  individual : 
his  *  moral  order '  (as  seen  above)  a  venture  of  Faith,  a  pious 
hope  :  it  cannot  convince  the  unbiassed  spectator  of  the  world 
as  it  is :  sum  of  imperfect  moments  cannot  be  perfection        .     116 

§  7.  This  '  religiosity '  but  a  momentary  halt :    Schelling  transfers 

interest  to  Nature  away  from  Man  :  his  Absolute  a  revival  of 

Behmen's  doctrine,  striving  of  the  Will-to-live  :  he  is  in  tnter 

\  sympathy  with  the  downward  grade  of  modern  thought  than 

Hegel  .  .  .  .  .  .  .117 

§  8.  Hegel  with  genial  and  poetic  temperament  arrests  for  a  time 
the  disillusion :  joyous  process  of  the  Absolute  from  un- 
conscious to  self-conscious  Reason  :  his  teaching  embellished 
with  religious  phrase  and  symbol  but  incompatible  with 
orthodoxy       .  .  .  .  .  .  .119 

§9.  Complete  *  subjection'  of  individual  to  universal  Reason  (in 
history,  State,  morality) :   conscious  reason  appears  late  on 
the  scene :  it  is  subordinate,  secondary,  and  an  *  epipheno- 
menon  ' :  Hegel  occasionally  sensible  of  the  radical  '  other- 
ness'  of  Thought  and  Things  .  .  .  .121 

§  10.  In  Hegel  all  subsequent  developments  are  latent :  he  confesses 
that  relapse  into  faith  is  necessary  :  violent  attacks  on  the 
Cosmic  process    from    the    side    of   Eudaemonism    and    of 
Moralism         .......     123 

§  II.  Comte  and  the  aristocratic  revival :  the  State  to  be  mechanic- 
ally moralised  :  strange  and  illogical  compromise  of  English 
Puritanism  :  prevalent  contempt  for  the  democratic  principle  : 
paralysis  of  reform  :  discouragement  of  philanthropy  :  what  is 
to  be  the  attitude  and  function  of  the  Christian  Church  ?        .124 

LECTURE  VIII 
Needful  Alliance  of  the  Gospel  and  'Democracy' 

Ovd^p  yhp  ireKelwaev  b  'Nofios,  iTrcLffaycoyT]  5^  Kpeirrovoi  iXTL8os,  5i' 
^j  iyyi^ofiev  r<fi  Qecp. — Heb.  vii.  19. 

Tria-T€v<rai  yhp  Set  rbv  Trpoa-epxofJ-epov  r^  8e<fj  on  iffrl,  Kal  rots 
iK^TjTovffiv  airhv  /XL(r6aTro8oT7]s  ylverai. — Heb.  xi.  6. 

**  For  the  law  made  nothing  perfect ;  but  the  bringing  in  of  a  better 
hope  did  j  by  the  which  we  draw  nigh  unto  God.    .   .    .   He  that 


CONTENTS  xxi 


Cometh  to  God  must  believe  that  He  is,  and  that  He  is  a  rewarder 
of  them  that  diligently  seek  Him." 

§  I.  Can  the  Church  still  claim  to  answer  current  needs  ?    Ambiguous 
meaning  of  the  term  *  Democracy ' :   a  term  constantly  re- 
peated in  various  senses  without  attempt  at  strict  definition  : 
its  debt  to  Christian  and  Mediaeval  ideas  :  its  fatal  entangle- 
ment in  a  classical  conception  of  the  State  (aristocratic  intel- 
lectualism,  and  worship  of  abstraction) :  the  democratic  ideal 
steadily  losing  ground  and,  apart  from  reinforcement  of  re- 
ligion, doomed  ......     128 

§2.  The  two  threatening  influences,  St&te- aufocrcuy  and  scientific 
fatalism  :  *  democracy '  (as  its  minimum)  must  allow  to  each 
man  worth  and  work :  modern  revolution  where  it  has  risen 
up  from  beneath,  the  insurgence  of  a  rudimentary  sense  of 
equity,  a  demand  for  partnership  on  equal  terms :  sense  of 
personal  value  combined  with  loyalty  to  a  cause  (integral  and 
complementary  features  in  all  human  activity)  .  •     13' 

§  3.  In  all  three  departments  of  life,  moral,  political,  religious,  we 
have  seen  an  original  petulant  selfishness  ennobled  and  trans- 
formed :  instinctive  claim  to  happiness  perfectly  justified  :  in 
the  end  not  a  selfish  but  an  ethical  demand :  Western  life 
built  on  the  conviction,  *  God  cares  for  the  individual,  and 
will  give  him  his  due '  .  .  .  .  .132 

§4.  Antithesis  and  development — realisation  only  through  striving 
against    hindrance :    this    conception    common    to    modem 
scientific  thought  also  true  in  the  single  life :   that  religion 
best  which  assures  man  of  his  value  in  the  eyes  of  God  :  the 
Gospel  a  protest  against  Law  :  sympathy  enlisted  because  the 
Right  is  weak,  or  at  least  often  thwarted  ;  the  least  emphasis 
laid  on  Divine  omnipotence  :  the  average  mind  has  no  patience 
with    autocracy  or    arbitrary    decree  :    *  constitutionalism ' : 
there  is  here  no  such  hopeless  conflict  of  "Will  and  Idea 
(democratic,  aristocratic)  as  prevails  in  secular  thought       .     134 
§  5.  '  Work '  as  applied  to  God  (in  Creation,  or  in  Redemption) : 
however   difficult  to  conceive,  voluntary  circumscription  of 
prerogative    for    the    sake    of   training   others    a    common 
experience  on  earth,   a  powerful  incentive  to  loyalty  and 
endeavour       .  .  .  .  .  ,  .136 

§  6.  Deism  at  least  kept  alive  the  ethical  side  of  the  Divine  nature : 
useful  emphasis  on  the  thought  (strictly  unphilosophic)  of  a 
foreign  element  thwarting  the  Divine  purpose  (Voltaire,  J.  S. 
Mill) :  Norse  mythology  (like  the  legend  of  Prometheus) 
stimulating  because  the  gods  are  weak  :  experience  tells  only 
of  the  striving  and  manifold :  ultimate  rest  conceived  (or 
postulated)  by  pure  Thought  .  .  .  -137 

§7.  Religion,  enlisted  with  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  in  the  cause  of 
endeavour :  religious  feeUng  elsewhere  (as  we  have  seen)  dis- 


xxii  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


connected  with  practice^  or  hostile  to  it :  the  root  of  religion 
(wherever  it  can  be  called  personal)  a  desire  to  escape  law : 
this  becomes  in  Christianity  the  sense  of  special  grace,  special 
conversion,  function,  and  endowment  .  .  .139 

§  8.  Danger  of  a  revival  of  pseudo-philosophy,  of  mediaeval  Realism  : 
God's  love  (if  language  is  to  mean  anything)  directed  to  in- 
dividtmls,  not  to  universals :  unselfishness  of  Christians, 
wherever  found,  due  to  this  assurance  :  Christianity  not  (as 
wrongly  supposed  by  Nietzsche)  merely  feminine  and  absten- 
tionist :  it  is  quite  rightly  '  incapable  of  rising  to  the  complete 
surrender  of  Happiness' (Hartmann).  .  .  .     140 

§  9.  Noble  but  illogical  appeals  of  German  pessimism  and  English 
science  to  take  part  in  a  world -process,  which  is  pronounced 
blind  and  mistaken  :  apprehensive  sense  in  such  writers  of 
the  decay  of  civic  morality  :  it  is  impossible  as  undesirable  to 
abolish  in  men  that  reference  of  all  to  standard  of  self,  which 
is  the  last  achievement  of  one  important  side  of  modern  thought 
and  political  reform     .  .  .  .  .  .141 

§  10.  In  the  difficulties  of  modem  life,  the  suspension  or  anomalies  of 
modern  thought,  the  Church  as  a  conciliator :  it  alone  can 
satisfy  and  control  the  egoistic  impulse :  it  alone  can  arrest 
the  decay  of  the  common  life,  of  the  social  basis  of  Western 
civiHsation      .  .  .  .  .  .  •     I44 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  I— A 

On  the  Duty  of  Conciliation  in  Apologetic 

§  I.  Gospel  messj^e  universal ;  cannot  afford  to  disregard  anything 
human  :  singular  merit  of  the  Mediaeval  Church :  its  ecu- 
menical claims  and  universal  sympathy         .  .  '147 

§  2.  The  modern  Church  resigns  this  overwhelming  responsibility, 
just  as  political  reform  has  been  largely  due  to  indolence : 
'liberty  of  conscience'  an  easy  creed,  especially  for  the 
governing  classes :  coercion  of  the  unwilling  for  their  own 
good  has  ceased  in  the  Church  .  .  .  .148 

§  3.  While  compulsion  passes  to  the  State,  the  Churches  left  with- 
out rivals,  as  engines  of  moral  appeal :  increase  of  force  in 
secular  matters :  open  field  for  the  influence  of  an  unarmed 
Church  .  ,  .  ,  .  ,  .150 

§4.  The  duty  of  sympathy  brings  in  the  problem  of  Faith  and 
Reason :  the  appeal  addressed  to  average  man,  not  to  the 
exceptional :  the  message  is  of  Divine  interest  in  men,  not  of 
speculative  attributes,  e.g.  '  omnipotence ' :     Religion  is  not, 


CONTENTS  xxiii 


cannot  be,  philosophy :  the  religion  of  reason  fails,  because  it 
is  general,  not  particular  .  .  .  .  •     151 

*  For  whom  Christ  died ' :  *  every  man  as  an  end ' :  but  is  the 
intellect  excluded?  it  is  secondary  and  subordinate:  modern 
specialism  makes  the  universal  claim  of  the  Church  difficult : 
Scientific  Law  and  religious  grace  hard  to  discuss  together: 
Church  as  the  garden  of  souls,  which  other  theories  hardly  allow 
to  exist :  Truth  in  this  life  never  seen  as  an  unbroken  whole     .  1 52 


On  the  Conflict  of  Reason  and  Instinct 

§  I.  The  eighteenth  century,  or  the  *  Age  of  Reason ' :  personal,  utili- 
tarian, and  in  maxims  of  government,  parental  and  autocratic, 
not  as  bureaucrat  or  priest,  but  as  philosopher  .  -154 

§  2.  Belief  in  the  omnipotence  of  the  legislator :  happiness  attained 
through  application  of  rational  and  universal  principles  to  dis- 
order of  life  :  ideal  a  cosmopolitan  federation  :  rude  awakening 
in  the  emergence  of  the  new  element    .  .  .  .156 

§  3.  Examination  of  Facts ^  apart  from  preconception :  subterranean 
forces,  hitherto  unsuspected,  seen  to  be  working :  no  theory 
of  values,  or  of  purpose :  Reason,  unconscious  and  aimless : 
Real  was  the  Rational  in  a  sense  totally  distinct  from  eighteenth- 
century  usage :  Neo-Kantians  identify  unconscious  Reason 
with  God  .  .  .  .  .  .  -157 

§  4.  This  comprehension  of  all  things  under  Reason,  sterile,  as  in  earlier 
times,  the  abuse  of  Final  Causes :  *  will '  soon  accepted 
as  a  truer  title,  less  burdened  with  purposive  implication : 
disuse  of  term  Reason  marks  close  of  the  new  Mediaevalism : 
gradual  lapse  into  the  unknowable,  or  the  Cosmic  process       .     158 

§  5.  Exact  reverse  of  early  Hellenic  development,  from  nature  to 
man  ;  from  Thales  to  Aristotle :  Humanism  becomes  un- 
popular in  the  post-classical  epoch :  modern  thought  has 
followed  this  latter       .  .  .  .  .  •     ^59 

§  6.  Instinct :  fabric  of  usage  and  custom,  in  savage  tribes  and  in 
Utopias  to-day :  difficulty  of  *  reversion  to  type,'  owing  to 
critical  subjectivism  of  ordinary  thought         .  .  .160 

§  7.  Antithesis  of  reflected  and  spontaneous  action :  opposing  views 
and  tendencies  to-day  :  difficulty  of  obtaining  respect  for  Law, 
or  common  welfare  :  Reason  unsocial  .  .  .  .161 

§  8.  Hesitation  of  natural  ethics  :  vagueness  or  insignificance  of 
their  axioms  :  Reason  and  Law  prescribe  only  the  minimum  : 
scanty  results  of  independent  moral  inquiry :  basis  of  morality 
must  remain  emotional  .  .  .  .  .162 


xxiv         THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


MEDIiEVAL  InTELLECTUALISM  AND  THE  OPPOSITION 

PAGE 

§  I.  Threefold  work  of  a  Religion:  (i)  as  social  institution:  (2) 
personal  and  attested  solace :  (3)  as  field  for  searchers  after 
Truth  :  intellectual  basis  stands  then  only  in  the  third  place  : 
use  and  value  not  apodictic  certainty    .  .  .  .165 

§  2.  Truth  (to  mean  anything)  must  be  my  truth  :  the  witness  to  a 
Religion  is  corporate  tradition,  and  personal  use  rather  than 
argument :  intellectual  apologetic  cannot  recognise  this : 
scholastic  arguments  are  addressed  to  reason  in  general : 
articulate  philosophy  a  surface -justification  for  a  deep 
conviction         .  .  .  .  .  .  .166 

§  3.  A  dogmatic  system  an  indispensable  development,  but  not 
wholly  a  gain  :  in  the  same  way.  Church  government  as  a 
visible  institution  :  Augustine  hands  down  Roman  discipline 
and  Greek  speculation  :  twofold  aspect  of  Mediaeval  Church  ; 
a  protective,  coercive  society,  and  a  mystical  asylum  :  a  special 
caste  investigated  truth  :  the  people  were  bound  to  obedience.     167 

§  4.  Authority  and  wisdom  of  right  belongs  to  the  Hierarchy  :  true 
Religion,  true  philosophy,  identical :  this  the  basis  of  the 
whole  development :  in  Reason  lies  man's  kinship  to  the 
Divine :  primacy  of  Reason  recognised  everywhere      .  .168 

§  5.  Independent  inquiry  found  not  to  lead  invariably  to  orthodox 
conclusions :  reaction  against  freethought  in  the  thirteenth 
century :  new  view,  dogma  a  mystery :  recognition  of  truths 
which  admitted,  and  did  not  admit,  of  rational  proof ;  Aquinas 
supplements  the  universal  (Aristotelian)  with  a  special  Christian 
superstructure  :  even  this,  strictly  classical  and  philosophical ; 
*  to  reach  God,  ecstasy,  not  reason '      .  .  .  .170 

§  6.  Merit  of  Scholastic  Logic :  an  attempt  to  make  '  the  Church's 
truth  mine ' :  not  as  Islam,  acquiesce  idly  in  mere  arbitrary 
"Will :  the  Reason  which  they  proposed  to  satisfy  became 
more  and  more  human  and  personal  in  the  widening  of  the 
sphere  of  enlightenment  from  palace  (ninth  century).  Uni- 
versity (tenth  and  eleventh  century),  Mendicant  orders 
(twelfth) :  the  individual  more  prominent :  the  long  line  of 
mystics  had  always  borne  witness         .  .  .  •     ^7^ 

§  7-  Ascent  from  the  negative  and  minimum  requirement  of  Law  to 
sense  of  personal  duty :  reinforced  by  emotion :  test  of  truth 
experience,  love  given  and  returned :  as  the  '  credenda ' 
were  one  by  one  removed  from  sphere  of  intellect,  belief 
founded  more  and  more  on  inner  conviction  :  Intellectualism 
gradually  undermined :  curious  catastrophe  of  the  Reformed 
Churches — relapsing  into  the  very  error  from  which  their 
movement  was  a  reaction  .....     172 


CONTENTS  XXV 


On  Natural  and  Rational  Religion 

FACE 

§  I.  Periodic  attempts  to  simplify  Religion,  by  reducing  *credenda* 
to  lowest  terms,  with  an  emphasis  either  on  Nature  or  on  man  : 
Pantheism  and  Humanism  :  the  natural  or  the  moral  .  •     '75 

§  2.  Accord  of  Nature  and  Reason  taken  for  granted  :  early  attack  of 
Sophists  against  society  :  the  humanistic  epoch  at  Athens — 
Reason  in  harmony  with  things  :  later  schools  did  not  conceal 
the  gap  between  intelligence  and  the  actual  order  :  reverence 
for  *I-^w'  returns  in  the  Roman  Empire,  and  dominates 
the  Middle  Age  .  .  .  .  .  .176 

§  3.  Once  again  the  subjective  spirit  claims  deliverance :  scientific 
mind  demands  that  Nature  and  Reason  shall  correspond : 
belief  that  the  two  books  of  God's  revelation  could  not  con- 
tradict :  the  '  Double  Truth, '  not  a  cowardice  or  an  irony,  but 
due  to  supposed  distinctness  of  realm  and  method  :  this,  owing 
to  failure  of  attempts  to  conciliate,  e.g.  Science  and  Religion, 
Mechanism  and  Teleology — still  widely  prevalent        .  '177 

§  4.  Natural  Theology  allowed  in  the  Middle  Age— Christianity  com- 
pleted, did  not  overthrow :  were  the  *  lesser  mysteries ' 
sufficient  ?  answer  in  the  tolerance  of  the  Crusades :  different 
estimate  of  the  doctrinal  superstructures :  same  problem  in 
education  to-day ;  to  one,  the  superfluous ;  to  another,  the 
essence  .......     178 

§5.  Two  tendencies  protest  against  dogmatic  orthodoxy;  (i)  intel- 
lectual and  sceptic  ;  (2)  mystic  and  emotional :  the  intellectual 
reaction.  Pelagian,  removes  God  to  a  distance :  the  mystical 
brings  Him  close  to  the  soul :  intense  dualism  of  the  anti- 
Rationalism  of  orthodoxy :  Gunther  pleads  for  scholastic  toler- 
ance :  natural  light  suffices  to  guide  to  God      ,  .  '179 

§  6.  Religion  tends  to  retire  into  an  inaccessible  fastness :  all  is  of  faith : 
Catholic  and  Protestant  unite  in  denying  right  of  Reason :  in 
place  of  casuistry  and  accommodation,  there  is  the  non 
possumus  of  supernatural  dogma,  the  inner  society  of  the 
Elect :  demoralising  of  the  State  :  new  basis  sought  in  antiquity 
for  statecraft  and  conduct ;  deserted  by  the  Church,  new  crisis 
in  the  antagonism  of  Individual  and  State-sovereignty  .     180 

§  7.  Attempted  restatement  of  belief  within  the  bounds  of  Reason : 
Socinian  and  Deistic  movements  :  significant  shrinkage  of  the 
*credenda'  in  the  latter  :  authority  of  Bible  disappears  :  written 
record  a  mere  concession  to  blindness  and  ignorance:  rapid 
vanishing  of  rational  theology  on  the  Continent  .  .181 

§  8.  Attempt  to  supply  plausible  hypothesis  of  world  from  humanistic 
point  of  view — a  failure  :  rationalistic  temper  equally  averse  to 
the  miraculous  (external)  and  the  emotional  (inward) :  tenets, 
specially  claimed  for  reason,  found  to  be  no  more  secure  than 
the  rest :  situation  at  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century     .     182 


xxvi         THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


The  Average  Man  as  the  Standard 

PAGE 

§  I.  Religion  again  considered  in  its  threefold  aspect ;  theory  of 
world,  visible  community,  personal  appeal :  the  last  is  of  para- 
mount value,  the  duty  of  winning  and  comforting  souls  .     184 

§  2.  The  three  arbiters,  sound  reason,  the  Church,  the  individual  or 
average  man  :  '  enthusiasm,'  the  differentia  of  man  rather  than 
thought  or  deference  to  law  :  rests  on  a  conviction  of  personal 
worth,  which  reflection  and  social  experience  does  not  support : 
only  impatience  or  disappointment  leads  reformers  to  wide,  col- 
lective, and  coercive  measures  .  .  .  .  .185 

§  3.  The  part,  of  interest  rather  than  the  whole :  modern  studies  of 
rudiments,  the  child,  the  savage,  early  society :  Religion,  as 
the  architectonic  science,  cannot  take  interest  in  secondary  and 
derivative ;  that  is,  cannot  be  mainly  intellectual,  mainly  social : 
all  are  equal,  and  the  only  universal  faculty  is  love,  as  willing 
surrender  :  this  the  modern  State  cannot  expect  to  elicit  .     186 

§  4.  Among  early  Christians  this  acceptance  of  the  average  confounded 
the  wise  :  uniform  treatment  of  criminal  and  pharisee  exasper- 
ated :  Christian  message  not  moral  or  political :  it  is  a  revela- 
tion of  God's  inmost  nature,  so  far  as  it  is  relative  to  man  :  it 
gives  a  new  standard  of  values  :  dwindling  of  State-influence, 
and  hesitation  of  independent  ethics     .  .  .  .187 

§  5.  Strength  of  Christianity,  a  type  of  Divine  character  singularly 
accessible  to  the  ordinary  man  :  vain  attempt  of  philosophy  to 
secure  a  humanistic  basis :  sure  appeal,  sacrifice  in  service  of 
a  cause  not  yet  won  :  no  reasonable  justification  of  this  except 
in  Christianity,  where  man  is  first  assured  of  his  worth  :  hope- 
less rivalry  of  other  creeds  of  self-abandonment :  protest  of 
Fichte  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .189 

§  6.  Provisoes  of  average  man,  devoting  himself  to  a  cause :  these 
not  satisfied  in  other  world-theories  :  Christianity  answers  the 
average  man ;  the  cause  is  intelligible  in  general  outline, 
righteous,  and  does  not  forget  its  followers  :  logical  position  of 
Immortality :  acceptance  must  of  course  be  a  venture  of  Faith, 
as  in  every  moral  act    .  ,  .  .  .  .190 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  II— A 

On  the  Necessity  of  basing  Institutions  upon  Average 
Human  Nature 

Curious  ignorance  of  human  nature  betrayed  by  designers  of 
Utopian  society :  neither  the  virtue  of  the  rulers,  nor  the 
drowsy  contentment  of  the  subjects,  could  survive  in  equilibrium     192 


CONTENTS  xxvH 


§  2.  The  modern  State  and  statesmen  are  also  to  blame  in  their  hasty 
judgment  of  man's  needs :  problem  of  sovereignty,  State  or 
individual  ?  the  modem  theory  due  to  Luther  and  to  Machiavelli : 
force  and  expediency :  suspicious  relations  of  State  and  subject 
in  the  modern  State  :  notable  exception  of  personal  loyalty,  an 
anomaly  :  no  appeal  to  moral  feeling  .  .  .  •     ^93 

§  3.  Average  man  unsusceptible  to  the  influence  of  abstractions :  the 
post- Reformation  State  might  have  been  remodelled,  inde- 
pendently of  Church  tutelage,  without  such  loss :  became  not 
merely  un-religious  but  un-moral  .  .  .  •     195 

§  4.  Error  in  basing  reconstruction  upon  a  supposed  Classical  model, 
not  on  the  feelings  of  average  man :  the  voluntary  element 
might  have  been  retained :  Government  might  have  become 
the  extension  rather  than  the  denial  of  the  family         .  .196 

§  5.  Justification  for  those  who  seek  to  restrict  the  scope  of  govern- 
ment (Tolstoy) :  some  believe  this  movement  inevitable  :  per- 
version of  preventive  action  of  State  :  decay  of  the  spontaneous     196 

§  6.  The  Christian  has  no  such  widespread  distrust  in  average  human 
nature  :  this  is  better  and  more  generous  than  the  social  system : 
a  better  acquaintance  with  ordinary  impulse  and  springs  of 
conduct  might  have  been  expected,  and  is  not  yet  too  late       .     197 


On  the  Abstentionist  Attitude  of  Reflection 

§  I.  Value  of  Christian  faith  for  the  present  scheme  of  Western  culture  : 
it  has  no  competitor :  insignificant  r61e  of  abstract  thought : 
the  three  higher  types  —  citizen,  philosopher.  Christian : 
*  ancient  feud '  of  the  first  and  last :  the  Church  as  harmon- 
ist and  reconciler  .  .  .  .  .  •199 

§  2.  Inadequacy  of  the  other  types :  as  a  fact  they  are  never  found 
pure  and  unmixed :  yet  speculative  thought  is  clear  in  some 
modem  instances  that  it  has  no  bearing  upon  actual  life : 
abdication  of  philosophy  .  .  .  .  .201 

§  3.  Service  rendered  by  this  candid  avowal :  recognition  that  the 
citizen's  life  is  not  the  Supreme  Good;  that  Religion  and 
Morality  are  essentially  distinct :  abandonment  of  the  early 
claim  of  philosophy  to  co-ordinate  all  knowledge  into  a  coherent 
whole :  the  retirement  of  the  Brahmin  or  Buddhist  theory 
from  active  competition  leaves  the  field  open  to  other 
influences  .......     202 

§  4.  Education  and  guidance  will  pass  to  those  who  have  most  sym- 
pathy with  ordinary  men :  the  '  godless '  citizen,  a  fiction  of 
anti-Christian  imagination  :  spiritual  basis  of  so-called  '  secular ' 
systems :  pure  philosophy  from  the  outset  anti-civic,  in  spite 
of  many  attempts  at  compromise  and  reconciliation     .  .     203 


xxviii        THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


PAGB 


§  5.  Increasing  detachment  and  isolation  of  the  Thinker  in  Greece : 
the  common  life  attracted  only  the  sceptic,  e.g.  contrast  of 
Lucian  and  Marcus  Aurelius     .....     205 

§  6.  Brief  revisal  of  social  interest  in  the  Neoplatonists :  long  and 
useful  supervision  of  the  Mediaeval  Church  :  detachment  begins 
again  with  Protestantism  .....     2o6 

§  7.  Withdrawal  of  the  Protestant  sects  :  *  mystical '  attitude  of  the 
new  philosophy :  both  starting  from  demand  for  freedom  end 
in  surrender  to  absolute  powers :  sinister  influence  on  the 
development  of  the  State  .....     207 

§  8.  The  English  School  alone  preserves  the  compromise  between 
ideal  and  actual :  not  open  to  the  disadvantage  of  pure  Monism  ; 
a  final  verdict  expressed  in  terms  of  absolute  approval  or  the 
reverse :  Deism,  with  its  strong  attempt  to  retain  a  moral 
basis  for  life,  was  its  characteristic  creed  :  a  guarded  attitude 
to  the  claims  of  reason :  absence  of  desire  to  throw  all  the 
divisions  of  life  into  one  :  from  such  source  came  the  '  popular ' 
philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century     ....     209 

§  9.  Reaction  from  the  hopeful  doctrines  of  Liberalism  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth  century :  fact  of  force  and  existence 
sole  test  of  merit  and  only  argument :  Thought  once  more 
turns  away  from  active  share  in  life  to  its  study  and  criticism  : 
waning  influence  of  philosophy,  in  practical  reaction  against 
the  early  English  Individualism,  in  theoretic  Hegelianism  or 
pure  Anarchy :  the  *  democratic '  movement  goes  on  its  way 
without  regard  to  first  principles  or  stiict  consistency  .  .     2IO 


Claims  of  the  Individual  for  Consideration  (historically 
treated) 

§  I .  Personal  consciousness  seems  an  *  aim '  in  the  world-process : 
claim  for  liberty  always  baffled  :  stages  in  its  demands  for 
emancipation :  the  Sophists  as  pioneers  .  .  .213 

§2.  Reaction  against  Nature,  Habit,  Instinct,  Control,  in  favour 
of  Purpose,  Insight,  Art :  yet  this  claim  not  for  all  men ; 
aristocracy  of  enlightenment    .  .  .  .  .214 

§  3.  The  State,  as  the  result  of  voluntary  compact  or  surrender,  of 
deliberate  design :  spontaneous  element  in  society,  language, 
behaviour,  overlooked  :  original  equality  first  postulated,  then 
forgotten:  'Sophistic,'  speculative,  not  practical  or  Icono- 
clastic (contrast  of  later  movements) :  less  revolutionary  than 
Plato :  not  dogma  but  the  proof  of  dogma  disputed  (as 
with  Scotus)      .......    215 

§  4.  '  Man  measure  of  all  things ' ;  its  meaning  :  in  epistemology, 
not  so  much  in  feeling  or  in  moral  judgment :  Relativism 


CONTENTS  xxix 


should  win  approval  to-day :  man  recalled  to  his  true  kingdom, 
giving  *  values  '  (as  Adam  names)  to  the  world  of  things  :  limits 
of  our  human  faculties;  a  modified  anthropocentrism,  not 
anarchy  or  Nihilism      .  .  .  .  .  .217 

§  5.  The  age  of  classical  Humanism  at  Athens  won  independence  for 
the  wise  :  failure  of  subjectivity,  whether  licentious  or  austere, 
hastened  on  the  Roman  Empire ;  a  brilliant  compromise 
between  the  sovereignty  of  the  State  and  the  sovereignty  of  the 
Individual :  neither  Alcibiades  nor  Diogenes  had  succeeded  :  a 
new  freedom  claimed  and  won  by  Christianity :  the  East 
commended  personal  search,  the  West  was  long  before  it  tried 
to  suppress  it :  the  Renaissance,  the  second  great  revolt, 
culminates  in  the  Reformation .  .  .  .  .218 

§  6.  Curious  complicity  of  intellectual  brilliance  and  despotism : 
Antinomian  tendencies  of  pure  Thought ;  revival  of  the  spirit 
invariably  weakens  *  morality ' :  tolerance  and  doubt  born  of 
the  Crusades :  *  Age  of  the  Despots '  and  culture  :  the  basis 
ability,  not  parental  right :  claim  of  ruler  and  of  genius  to  be 
*  above  law '      .  .  .  .  .  .  .     220 

§  7.  Fresh  outlet  in  the  Religious  movements  of  sixteenth  century  : 
the  *  Extreme  Left ' :  revival  of  Authority :  once  more  the 
intellectual  revival  bowed  to  the  Central  power,  contenting 
itself  with  speculative  freedom  :  the  State  supports  freethought 
in  its  attacks  on  belief  and  clerical  influence :  irreligion  of 
Courts  under  the  prevailing  '  Liberalism  '  of  Sovereigns  before 
the  Revolution :  suppression  of  the  Order  of  Jesus       .  .221 

§8.  The  nineteenth  century  opens  with  middle-class  surrender  of 
impracticable  rights  :  new  form  of  Ctesarism  :  liberty  once  more 
in  reflection  and  private  predilection  :  increasing  scope  for  in- 
dividualism no  longer  comprised  in  citizenship :  religion, 
conscience,  taste,  and  (to  some  extent)  action  more  free  to-day    222 

§  9.  The  strictly  academic  problem  of  *  freedom '  not  treated : 
current  metaphysical  mysticism  ignores  the  difliculty, — 
emergence  of  the  conscious  person  :  Pantheism  more  lethargic 
than  a  theoretic  scientific  fatalism,  which  but  rarely  comes  into 
conflict  with  consciousness  of  intrinsic  energy  :  on  this  the 
zest  of  life  depends       ......     224 

§  10.  The  *  Anarchist '  movement,  its  justice  and  its  hopes ;  the 
Christian  Church  in  far  more  genuine  sympathy  with  these 
aims  than  with  the  deification  of  authority        .  .  .     226 

D 

Overt  Selfishness  of  the  Revolutionary  Maxims 

§  I.  Selfishness  and  Unselfishness ;  vagueness  of  these  terms :  the 
curious  growth  of  undogmatic  social  *  altruism '  in  the  nineteenth 


XXX    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


century :  modern  thought  a  hybrid,  half  science  and  half 
sentiment :  unabashed  hedonism  of  pre-revolutionary  aims  : 
the  modern  revival  due  alone,  consciously  or  unawares,  to 
Church  influence :  true  reform  cannot  recognise  this  canon .     228 

§  2.  Revival  of  practical  and  doctrinal  Christianity,  in  the  last  century, 
a  marvel  of  history  :  Hegelian  use  of  Trinitarian  formula :  of 
the  '  Common  Reason,'  and  continuous  corporate  life  and 
tradition :  almost  an  apology  for  Catholicism :  a  reaction 
against  anti-dogmatic  individualism  of  eighteenth  century  :  in 
social  reform,  inspiration  only  from  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel : 
unfairness  of  the  taunt,  *  bankruptcy '  of  science  .  .     229 

§  3.  Religious  impulse  in  the  nineteenth  century  movements  of 
*  Emancipation  ' :  bold  venture  of  the  Abolitionist,  in  defiance 
of  all  experience :  man  to  be  treated  not  as  he  is  but  as  he 
ought  to  be       .  .  .  .  .  .  .     231 

§  4.  Contrast  of  the  maxims  of  pre- Revolution  philosophy :  their 
message  perverted  in  the  delivery  to  mere  incitement  to  over- 
throw :  a  direct  appeal  to  selfishness :  oblivion  of  man's 
inherent  desire  to  serve  a  cause :  calculating  and  contracting 
temper  in  theology  (England  and  Germany) :  rapid  dis- 
appearance of  the  'Intellectuals'  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
Revolution        .......     232 

§  5.  Emphasis  on  individual  rather  than  on  corporate  life  distinguishes 
eighteenth  century  from  mediaeval  ideals :  republican  ideal 
compounded  of  incompatibles, — Greek  citizen  and  Greek  sage  : 
Aristides  and  Socrates :  real  discord  between  the  two : 
attempt  to  restore  the  rudimentary  patriotism  of  primitive 
times  must  always  fail  .....     234 

§  6.  Imaginary  figure  of  the  reforming  Ideal :  State-immersed,  and 
State-escaping  :  primitive  man  not  *  unselfish '  in  the  truest 
sense  except  for  use  :  the  philosopher  not  strictly  *  unselfish ' ; 
and  in  any  case  unsympathetic :  character  of  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  unselfishness  as  contrasted  with  mere  self- 
surrender  :  founded  entirely  on  the  doctrine  of  the  worth 
of  self :  no  substitute  for  this  energy ....     235 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  III— A 

On  the  Original  Independence  and  Antithesis  of 
Religious  Feeling  and  Moral  Behaviour 

§  I.  Some  definitions  of  Religion  and  Morality  :  the  general  contrast 
between  the  subjective  and  the  objective,  Gospel  and  Law : 
Morality,  the  law,  to  Religion,  the  individual  of  real  import : 
Morality  always  unfinal  .....     237 

§  2.  Religion  a  plea  for  the  exceptional :  Religion  encour^es  effort 


CONTENTS  xxxi 


and  comforts  failure  :  Nature -worship,  a  passing  and  irrational 
thrill :  gradual  increase  of  intimate  and  personal  religion  : 
Masonic  individualism  of  the  Roman  epoch  in  all  religions : 
the  protector  instead  of  the  world -creator  or  remote  ancestor  : 
religion  a  matter  of  choice,  not  of  birth  .  .  .     239 

§  3.  Religion,  supposed  by  some  to  have  its  origin  in  State  imposture, 
as  a  valuable  engine  of  police,  is  exposed,  and  often  directly 
hostile  to  the  State  :  Thuggee :  absoluteness  of  Religion 
claims  to  surrender  self  and  override  ordinary  Morality  :  joy 
of  the  religious  martyr  contrasted  with  sadness  of  the  moralist : 
the  unreserved  submission  laid  to  charge  of  Jesuits,  true  of  all 
genuine  religious  feeling  .....     240 

§4.  Breach  between  Religion  and  Morality,  as  between  statecraft 
and  Morality  in  the  times  following  Machiavelli  and  the 
Reform :  Charles  i.  ;  and  the  Jesuits :  era  of  simplicity : 
appeal  to  inmutable  Morality  as  sheer  utility :  Religion  and 
Morality  confused  and  identified  in  the  eighteenth  century  by 
all  Schools  ;  so  Reason  and  Nature :  with  the  failure,  alike 
of  Church  and  Enlightenment,  the  question  arose  again  :  new 
scope  for  *  supererogation  '  in  the  new  moralised  State  .     242 

§  5.  Origin  and  nature  of  the  new  *  regimentation '  and  discipline      .     243 


On  the  Conception  of  God  as  General  rather 
THAN  AS  Judge 

Character  of  *  Law '  to  excite  hostility :  growing  dislike  of 
restraint :  dutifulness,  a  fundamental  trait  in  primitive  culture  : 
with  *  enlightenment '  it  disappears  :  all  political  reflection 
tends  towards  withholding  allegiance  from  any  alien  authority  : 
supposed  transfer  of  power  to-day  to  a  '  majority '  has  wrought 
little  change     .......     246 

Significant  refusal  to  recognise  law  (Education  in  England) : 
*  conscience  final  arbiter  for  each '  :  Law  takes  an  arbitrary 
character  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation  and  the  new  Com- 
petitive nationalities  :  all  systems  unite  in  Absolutism  (political, 
Divine,  metaphysical) :  reaction  in  the  eighteenth  century : 
law  the  mere  condition  of  present  welfare  and  future  blessed- 
ness (according  to  common  sense,  not  to  arbitrary  decree) : 
laws  mere  rules  of  self-interest,  forestalling  caprice  with  kindly 
prudence  .......     247 

This  '  popular '  philosophy  not  popular  enough :  Calvinism 
disdains  to  explain  law  by  human  analogy  :  Deism,  profoundly 
humanistic,  moral,  and  simple :  its  speedy  collapse :  the 
mysterious  regains  ground  :  natural  bias  of  Protestantism 
towards  worship  of  the  unknown         ....     249 


xxxii        THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


Mysticism  and  its  unanswerable  appeal  to  experience :  the 
*  Union ' :  legalism  never  transcends  dualism :  all  human 
thought  and  judgment  relative :  object  of  law  can  only  be 
the  welfare  of  the  mass :  in  eighteenth  century,  law  con- 
descends to  reason  and  argue,  professing  its  proper  aim  to  be 
use :  men  criticise  Divine  law  from  same  standpoint  as  human     251 

Eternal  punishment,  its  lessened  significance :  God  no  longer 
as  absolute  Judge  :  notion  of  arbitrary  force  passed  into  realm 
of  nature  and  State :  sense  of  Divine  effort  in  Christianity  : 
this  desire  to  procure  a  sanction  for  human  endeavour,  the 
legitimate  counterpart  of  the  desire  for  a  place  of  repose  :  the 
paradox  of  religion  :  both  needs  must  be  satisfied  :  Christ  as 
a  Captain  of  free  soldiers  .....    252 


On  Surrender  to  the  Unknown 

§  I .  Mysticism,  the  most  real  of  experiences  :  incommunicable  :  the 
strictly  religious  form  only  toys  with  nihilism  and  is  genuinely 
personal :  another  kind  boasts  of  nothingness  :  '  hedonisn%' 
of  the  religious  mystic :  pessimism  of  other  surrenders  to  the 
indefinable  and  unconscious     .....     255 

§  2.  Will  or  Faith  alone  can  sum  up  the  Universe  as  a  totality : 
ultimate  unities  in  philosophy  out  of  fashion  to-day :  specialism 
of  modern  thought :  the  English  School  discounts  the  pre- 
tension of  speculation  to  have  discovered  Unity :  only 
*  provisional '  or  *  working  hypothesis ' :  a  practical  need  makes 
us  apply  a  comprehensive  term  to  the  Universe  :  problem,  Can 
this  central  unity  become  a  partizan  ?  .  .  .  .     256 

§  3.  Religious  feeling  arises  from  this  desire — *  The  Lord  is  on  my 
side ' :  spirit  of  favouritism  in  the  earliest  personal  impulse  to 
religion  :  keen  sense  of  dualism,  of  a  real  struggle  at  the  root 
of  religion :  lulling  effect  of  pure  monotheistic  systems, 
whether  of  will  (Islam)  or  pure  Being  (Hindu) :  Christian 
belief  reads  God's  character  in  a  human  life  .  .     258 

§  4.  *  Humanism  '  of  the  Christian  faith  :  ultimate  antithesis  :  the  two- 
fold demand  of  the  Divine  nature — peace  and  aid  in  fight :  this 
latter  bears  the  first  emphasis  in  Christian  belief,  not  the  final .     259 

§  5.  Growth  in  Greece  of  man's  humanistic  demands  on  the  central 
power :  it  is  gradually  invested  in  human  attributes :  after 
Aristotle,  abandonment  of  the  anthropocentric  point  of 
view  :  significance  of  Platonic  revival,  and  Gospel  simplicity  : 
the  Gnostic,  starting  from  intellectual  need,  falls  back  into 
pure  irrationalism :  except  in  Africa  and  under  Augustine's 
influence  the  Church  never  surrenders  to  the  unknown  as  such    260 


CONTENTS  xxxiii 


PAGE 


§6.  Attitude  of  TertuUian — the  message  to  be  accepted  because, 
not  in  spite,  of  its  paradox  :  Septimius  Severus,  embodiment 
of  a  like  principle  of  irresponsible  sovereignty :  scholastic 
movement  a  half-conscious  protest  against  Augustinianism : 
Absolutism  revived  by  Protestant  reformers,  though  they  started 
from  freedom  and  the  standard  of  individual  conscience  :  this 
development  wholly  in  keeping  with  the  general  movements 
of  seventeenth  century ......     262 

§  7.  Supreme  aim  of  the  eighteenth  century — to  eliminate  the  un- 
known, mysterious,  and  unaccountable  :  reaction  against  clear- 
ness and  vaunted  simplicity  in  the  nineteenth  :  transparency  a 
demerit  to  the  new  school  of  Obscurantism  :  this  emphasised 
by  the  general  sense  of  uncertain  aim  and  irresistible  forces  : 
falsification  of  hopes  and  designs  in  every  part  of  social 
development     .......     264 

§  8.  Perverted  meaning  of  *  Reason  '  in  the  new  age  :  anthropocentric 
standard  ridiculed  or  ignored  :  reaction  in  Comtism :  Pro- 
fessor Huxley's  moral  dualism  :  refuge  in  abnegation  :  Church 
indispensable  as  alone  giving  motive  and  hope  .  .     265 


SUPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  IV— A 

The  Three  Stages  of  Modern  Apologetic 
Credibility  \  ^^„„^^„^„^,,,^  ^«  ^„„  ttt^t^t.  TPure  Reason 

FACT  '  "''^^^'TmLosoPHiE^  ^  ''''^'^  ^''^''''' 

Value  J  Philosophies  (utility 

§  I.  Different  standpoint  of  man  of  action  and  reflection :  the  one 
careless  of  the  absoluteness  of  a  working  hypothesis  :  conflict 
of  Science  and  *  democracy '  in  one  of  its  phases  :  rejection  of 
a  *  single  law '  ^in  modern  French  thought :  English  doubt  of 
the  claims  of  *  architectonic '  science     ....     267 

§  2.  Successive  isolations  of  the  Religious  problem :  the  ages  of  Reason, 
of  Facts,  of  Values, — corresponding  to  the  years  1700-1900: 
early  inquiry  into  Christian  dogma  by  Rationalism :  second 
inquiry  of  Science,— the  nineteenth  century  'historic':  this 
age  not  prolific  in  new  principles  ;  but  in  revivals :  its  title  to 
distinction,  its  industry  ;  its  interest,  the  conflict  of  ideas         .     269 

§  3.  Keen  and  critical  inquiry  into  the  Gospel  story  :  attempt  to  study 
without  prejudice :  general  belief  that  its  morality  might 
survive  its  supernatural  basis :  at  length  realised  that  Nature 
taught  an  opposite  lesson  to  Christian  altruism  :  much  pains  to 
reconcile :  final  settlement  into  Gnosticism  ;  or  the  theory  of 
combating  the  Cosmic  Process  :  absence  of  any  clear  principle    271 


xxxiv       THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


§  4.  A  humanistic  reaction  sets  in  ;  values :  rejection  of  the  standards 
of  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  :  a  division  of  territory 
proposed :  modesty  of  our  aim  to-day,  to  understand  and  pro- 
vide for  average  man  :  silence  of  contemporary  thought  on  all 
ultimate  problems  ;  no  reason  for  rejecting  the  light  we  have  .     272 


On  the  Pretensions  of  Esoteric  Religion 

§  I.  The  claim  of  'Catholicity,'  of  universal  appHcation  :  unique 
appeal  of  Christianity,  though  it  might  adjust  itself  to  indi- 
vidual needs :  tendency  of  all  religion  to  divide  into  popular 
and  esoteric :  Plato's  *  noble  falsehood ' :  this  precedent  may 
excuse  all  deviation  in  civil  crisis  from  ordinary  canons  of 
right      ........     274 

§  2.  Often  a  sincere  desire  to  give  the  ignorant  the  best  possible : 
much  that  is  slothful  in  the  freedom  we  allow  others  cheerfully 
to-day  :  the  true  duty  of  slave-owners,  as  of  '  imperial '  races  : 
esoteric  reserve  in  the  early  scholastics  :  some  myths  rejected  : 
unworthy  reserve  not  a  fair  charge  against  mediaeval  hierarchy      276 

§  3.  Parents  unconscious  of  offspring's  maturity :  Protestant  religion 
betrays  a  tendency  to  fall  asunder  into  two  :  lack  of  sympathy 
with  the  plain  man  in  the  eighteenth  century  :  Rousseau  and 
English  Revivalism  appeal  to  direct  experience,  not  to  reason  : 
a  similar  modesty  in  the  science  of  the  next  age  .  -277 

§  4.  Science  has  appeared,  deserting  its  true  province  of  particulars, 
to  teach  an  esoteric  cult :  *  monistic '  indifference  has  no  charm 
for  the  average  mind,  no  claim  on  the  ordinary  life :  in  the 
reduction  of  the  simplest  moral  axiom  to  the  sphere  of  faith,  all 
'boasting  is  excluded,'  and  wise  and  unlearned  stand  on  the 
.  same  lowly  level  ......     278 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  V— A 
Ages  of  Faith 

The  present  zge  the  Age  of  Faith  :  every  first  principle  (in  morals 
as  much  as  in  doctrine)  called  in  question  :  Western  mind  can- 
not settle  into  pure  monotheism  (unwarranted  by  facts)  or  mere 
social  convention :  Christianity  indeed  stronger  than  other 
creeds,  because  of  its  influence  :  Science  respects  only  what  is, 
and  finds  only  this  justified :  the  new  canon  of  authenticity, 
survival  in  the  theoretic  field,  proved  valtce  in  the  practical     .     281 

Reluctance  to  speak  of  '  duties,'  stress  on  '  rights ' :  marks,  not 
necessarily  a  weakening  of  moral  fibre,  but  a  natural  result  of 
thought-development :  Dualism  of  law  :  a  condition  of  welfare. 


CONTENTS  XXXV 


not  an  arbitrary  stipulation  :  general  agreement  allowed,  even 
of  the  modern  idiosyncrasies  :  even  this  not  clearly  defined : 
'  Catholicity '  only  belongs  to  the  first  axioms  of  logic  :  thin- 
ness of  universality :  individualism  in  conception  of  heaven  : 
we  remould  social  convention  and  question  moral  law  .     282 

§  3.  '  Rights '  not  *  duties '  prominent  in  Christianity  as  well  as  in 
eighteenth-century  Enlightenment :  privilege  before  precept : 
opposition  to  the  rule  of  majorities  quite  as  marked  to-day  as 
earlier  revolt  against  personal  tyranny  :  order  of  the  Church 
Catechism  :  outside  Christianity  religion  often  means  the 
sacrifice  of  the  worthless  to  the  unknown  :  State  has  lost  its 
power  of  appeal  ;  threat  and  compulsion  :  the  Enlightenment 
(at  its  best)  agrees  with  Christianity ;  man  not  to  be  bound, 
but  won,  to  the  right    ......     284 

§  4.  *  But  is  not  this  vocation  and  election  a  mere  m3rthologic  postulate  ? 
and  this  faith  in  a  transcendental  destiny  a  bar  to  reasonable  and 
modest  progress  here  ? ' :  but  this  objection  true  of  all  the 
principles  animating  the  idealist  movements  of  last  century  : 
all  Abolitionist  measures  imply  treatment  of  men  as  better  than 
they  actually  are :  '  man  can  only  attain  freedom  or  political 
responsibility  if  considered  already  as  deserving  of  it ' :  exten- 
sion of  suffrage  (where  not  purely  utilitarian)  followed  same 
lines :  rights  before  duties  ;  duties  learnt  only  incidentally  by 
exercising  rights :  science  all  the  time  was  accumulating 
directly  opposite  evidence        .....     285 

§  5.  Both  the  claims  of  the  Enlightenment  for  man  and  the  titles  of  the 
newly  baptized  constitute  a  challenge  to  facts  :  the  confidence 
of  the  reforming  secularist  more  a  '  venture  of  faith  '  than  the 
Christian  hope  :  democracy  claims  immediate  enjoyment :  sub- 
jective experience  confirms  the  value  of  Christian  surrender  of 
faith  :  philanthropy  disheartened  :  earlier  appeal  for  deferred 
enjoyment  and  self-denying  toil ;  would  be  out  of  place  to-day  : 
effect  of  doubt  in  immortality  :  unselfishness  would  still  be 
practised,  but  it  could  not  be  rationally  defended         .  .     287 

§  6.  The  Middle  Ages  as  *  ages  of  faith ' :  inapplicable  term :  immediacy 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  strong  and  rational :  the  *  ages  of  faith ' 
begin  with  the  Reformation  :  in  spite  of  the  lessons  of  actuality, 
we  cling  to  old  beliefs  :  the  postulate  of  reformers  to-day  'dim 
mythologic  postulate,' '  ventures  of  faith  and  hope  * :  this  invoca- 
tion of  Faith  more  than  ever  before  necessary  ;  the  Church 
alone  answers  .......     288 

B 

On  the  Modern  Separation  of  Classes  and  Interests 

§  I.  No  common  currency  in  the  various  departments  of  exact  know- 
ledge :  the  •  Universe ' :  Hartmann,  last  of  the  Great  Systems  : 


xxxvi       THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


VAGE 


Specialism  as  much  a  feature  of  practical  life  as  of  scientific 
research  :  conflicting  interests  and  party  warfare  :  distance  and 
abstraction  of  the  unity  supposed  to  weld  all  together  :  the 
feudal  polity  in  some  respects  a  revival  of  the  best  features  in 
the  Hellenic  city-state  :  Manor  a  State  in  miniature     .  .     290 

§  2.  Underneath  the  forcible  unity  of  the  modern  State,  hating  grada- 
tion and  loving  uniformity,  seethes  a  conflict  of  interests :  arti- 
ficial language  of  political  debate  fosters  the  belief  in  class- 
animosity  :  decay  of  easy  intercourse  :  public  language  infinitely 
below  ordinary  practice  .  .         '    .  .  .     292 

§  3.  The  Churches  ;  harmony  through  division  :  religious  differences 
dwelt  on  to  exclusion  of  points  of  agreement :  concerted  action 
impossible  :  idiosyncrasy  and  the  private  conscience  and  private 
interpretation  :  sense  of  unity  and  common  aim  disappearing  : 
absence  of  dogmatism  nevertheless,  and  of  sharp  distinction,  no 
sign  of  weariness,  but  of  uncertainty  :  it  is  tolerant  and  modest 
rather  than  sceptical  or  indifferent :  the  Churches  cannot  at 
present  heal  the  breaches  in  the  social  order  .  .     293 

§  4.  Contract,  the  new  method,  cannot  admit  '  unselfishness ' :  the 
new  State  will  know  no  such  term  :  future  of  Constitu- 
tionalism, interests  and  classes  alternately  represented  :  the 
Gospel  more  unanimous  in  spite  of  the  schisms  of  believers  : 
social  problems  to-day  :  this  severance  of  interests  only  to  be 
reconciled  by  the  principle  of  the  Gospel  .  .  .     295 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  VI— A 

On  the  Prevailing  Sense  of  Helplessness  before  Irre- 
sistible Forces,  or,  on  Pessimism,  its  Origin  and 
Significance 

§  I.  Relativity  of  all  knowledge :  early  Greek  Humanism  :  the  Self 
as  *  measure  of  all  things ' :  attempted  application  of  human 
attribute  and  sympathies  to  the  Cosmos  :  new  conception  of 
*  Divine ' :  certain  and  calculable  :  defecation  in  the  humanistic 
period ;  sympathy,  goodness,  intelligence  (Socrates,  Plato, 
Aristotle)  :  in  subjective  schools  anthropomorphism  vanishes  .     298 

§  2.  Exceptional  genius  rarely  mirrors  its  own  age  :  life  and  thought 
of  a  people  in  letters  and  drama  :  science  and  philosophy  deal 
always  directly  with  law  and  uniformity  ;  adjustment  to  indi- 
vidual use  quite  secondary  :  literature  always  with  the  unit  and 
his  conflict  with  the  outward  order  :  the  hero  or  the  protagonist 
is  always  Athanasius  co7itra  mundum  :  natural  bias  towards 
belief  in  reason  and  righteousness  of  things  :  confusion  of  intelli- 
gibility and  goodness,  of  ignorance  and  vice  :  man  finds  his  own 
true  being  at  the  heart  of  things  .  .  .  .     299 


CONTENTS  xxxvii 


§  3.  Greek  tragedy  opens  with  the  legend  of  Prometheus  ;  representing 
Humanism  and  the  protest  against  arbitrary  force  :  unavailing 
attempts  at  a  Theodicy :  the  poetic  mythology,  out  of  re- 
lation to  human  interest  and  moral  demand,  is  swept  away: 
humiliating  new  reading  of  *  man  measure  of  all  things ' : 
gradual  restriction  of  sphere  ;  from  the  conflict  of  East  and 
West,  the  drama  of  a  new  dynasty  in  heaven,  to  domestic 
intrigue  and  liaison  :  failure  of  Reason  to  force  its  moral  and 
intellectual  canons  on  the  world         ....     301 

§  4.  Doubt  if  *  righteousness '  receives  recognition  in  the  Universe : 
fallacy  of  the  maxim  '  Virtue  its  own  reward ' :  serious  artists 
in  our  own  days  interest  by  representing  victims  in  the  clutch 
of  destiny,  and  deny  any  correspondence  to  the  moral  aim  of 
man  :  this  the  origin  of  Pessimism        ....     302 

§  5.  Pessimism,  often  merely  temperamental :  right  to  agency,  and 
service  balked  by  denial  of  humanistic  aim  in  the  Universe  out- 
side :  theoretic  pessimism  often  united  with  cheerfulness  and 
endeavour  :  pessimism  of  Cicero  :  art  and  philosophy  seek  to 
procure  relief  by  detaching  the  attention  from  preoccupied  care 
of  the  personal :  its  failure  shown  in  the  revived  Gnosticism  of 
later  years         .......     304 

§  6.  Such  call  to  illogical  self-sacrifice  as  is  heard  in  some  quarters 
to-day  of  no  avail :  Epicureanism  is  the  natural  corollary  of  an 
aimless  world  :  an  accidental  world  leaves  room  for  the  play  of 
human  free  will :  added  zest  in  insecurity  of  tenure  and  occa- 
sion :  it  is  Stoicism  that  leads  to  pessimism  :  nor  would  proof  of 
accident  at  once  overthrow  moral  sanctions  :  even  the  discovery 
of  pure  mechanism  might  leave  a  scope  for  venture :  in 
eighteenth  century  a  sense  of  freedom  succeeded  to  *  pre- 
destination '  and  caste-system   .....     305 

§  7.  Buoyant  feeling  of  Self-sufficiency ;  very  speedily  lost :  what 
Epicurus  feared  has  now  come  about :  impersonal  fate 
succeeds  to  personal  will :  a  loop-hole  still  left  in  his  system  : 
this  now  disproved  :  heavy  air  of  finality  in  Roman  Empire  : 
pessimism  always  issues  from  subservience  to  unknown  law : 
demand  for  personal  worth  and  freedom  :  danger  to  civilised 
States,  apart  from  Christian  belief       ....     307 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  VII— A 

On  the  Anti-Moralism  of  Idealism  and  of  Science 

I.  Tone  of  recent  literature,  a  reaction  from  the  average  to  the 
exceptional :  modest  and  rudimentary  problems  in  a  *  demo- 
cratic '  age :  imagination  turns  from  the  civic  and  common- 
place routine :  private  world  of  the  man  of  genius,  as  an 
asylum ........     309 


xxxviii     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


§  2.  Price  hitherto  paid  by  the  community  for  over -refinement  of  a 
class :  in  Greece,  in  Italy,  in  France :  all  the  personalist 
schools  in  later  Greece  disdain  the  domestic  and  social  side : 
wisdom  cannot  recognise  the  finality  of  the  moral  life  :  simple 
demands  of  the  people  to-day  not  compatible  with  the 
leisured  ease  of  idleness  or  abstention  .  .  -311 

§3.  Danger  of  '  privilege '  in  detachment  (whether  of  rank,  wealth, 
commerce,  or  artistic  taste) :  Christian  principles  alone  can 
unite :  what  is  lost  in  contracting  days :  most  religious  and 
speculative  feelings  tend  to  acknowledge  a  higher  realm :  the 
hopes  and  beliefs  on  which  the  sense  of  unity  depends  cannot 
be  communicated  by  argument .  .  .  .  '311 

§4.  We  have  to  reckon  not  with  distant  unities  but  with  urgent 
differences,  not  with  law  so  much  as  with  exception 
(casuistry) :  ultimate  unities  negligible  :  gradual  abandonment 
of  anthropomorphic  hopes  :  can  man  gain  knowledge  of  the 
Universe  by  surrendering  his  differentia  ?  The  moral  venture 
of  man :  nothing  gained  by  denying  moral  interest  to  God : 
no  halting-place  between  historic  Christianity  and  denial  of  all 
meaning  and  worth  in  the  world  .  .  .  '313 


On  the  Survival  of  Teleologic  Language  apart  from 
THE  Conception  of  Intelligible  End 

§  I.  *  Purpose'  in  the  world — in  part  a  humanistic  conceit:  ir- 
resistible impulse  of  man  to  relate  all  knowledge  and  fact  to 
himself :  the  use  of  '  law '  for  physical  sequence  :  introduces 
teleological  sentiment  and  quiets  doubt  .  .  '315 

§  2.  This  retention  of  purposive  language  due  largely  to  modern 
specialism :  attempt  of  Science  to  mingle  pious  exhortation 
and  strict  proof:  instinctive  and  hereditary  prejudices  at 
variance  with  the  lessons  of  their  physical  studies :  Nietzsche 
alone  is  logical :  Christianity  itself  is  less  dualistic :  but  this 
compromise  marks  transition  :  compromise  and  disinclination 
to  face  real  issues,  a  feature  of  our  age :  dilemma  of  *  world- 
purpose  ' :  meaning  of  purpose — scheme  in  which  those  asked 
to  suffer  and  work  may  also  share  :  no  other  sense  allowable  .     317 

§  3.  How  is  this  purpose  intelligible  ?  postulates  of  Humanism  :  days 
of  vague  terror  before  unknown  are  passing  :  we  cannot  prove 
the  truth  of  the  Christian  doctrine :  no  study  of  nature  or 
history  can  assure  us  of  any  unfailing  premium  set  on  righteous- 
ness :  other  religions  start  with  unity  and  perfection,  and  only 
condescend  to  the  distressed  manifold:  Christianity  alone 
starts  at  the  lowest  level,  with  the  spectacle  of  a  suffering 
criminal :  it  alone  builds  on  facts  of  obvious  experience — the 


CONTENTS  xxxix 


PAGE 


weakness  of  God,  the  distress  of  man  :  contrast ;  '  perfect 
member  of  a  perfect  whole '   .  .  .  .318 

§  4.  We  must  not  judge  the  universe  by  a  canon  out  of  all  relation  to 
our  ordinary  standards  :  all  the  struggles  of  the  past,  religious 
and  political,  have  been  directed  against  arbitrary  and  irre- 
sponsible power :  motive  and  meaning  to  be  interpreted 
morally  :  if  we  accept  any  other  standard  we  are  back  once 
again  in  unreasoning  awe  of  the  unknown  :  we  start  with  the 
historic  and  human  life  of  the  Saviour :  special  solicitude  for 
individual  cases  (in  the  New  Testament)  .  .  .     319 

§  5.  Unconscious  Christianism  of  the  recent  age  :  the  direct  lesson  of 
natural  science  certainly  not  self-effacement :  Christianity 
begins  by  recognising  the  legitimacy  and  ends  by  directing  the 
impulse,  of  our  *  selfish '  instincts — '  what  must  I  do  to  be 
saved  ? '  at  this  stage  of  Western  culture,  no  idle  building  of 
Pyramids :  prerequisite  of  all  appeal — guarantee  of  eternal 
worth    ........     320 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  VIII-A 

On  the  Ideals  of  Modern  Democracy,  founded  on  Christian 
AND  Medi/Eval  Regard  for  the  Dignity  of  Man 

§  I.  Vital  connection  of  *  democratic '  ideals  and  Christian  belief,  if 
we  interpret  the  vague  term  as  implying  appeal  to  the  moral 
sense  of  the  community  through  individual  privilege  and  re- 
sponsibility :  democracy  rooted  in  compassion  and  justice  to 
the  individual :  this  is  threatened  on  all  sides  to-day,  in  theory 
as  in  practice :  serious  inquiry  must  be ;  what  is  meant  by 
such  phrases  as  the  '  future  lies  with  democracy ' :  the 
Gosp)el  alone  lends  any  reality  or  spirit  to  these  claims :  the 
Church  recognises  the  new  spirit  only  so  far  as  it  issues  from 
a  certain  conception  of  human  nature :  recounts,  like  ideal 
democracy,  privilege  (matter  of  faith  not  of  experience)  rather 
than  obligation  ......     324 

§  2.  The  worth  of  this  method  borne  out  by  the  testimony  of  all 
successful  government :  majesty  of  law  cannot  be  set  up  again  : 
apologetic  tone  of  authority  before  the  French  Revolution ; 
attempt  to  justify  to  the  individual  moral  consciousness  :  taxes 
and  laws  binding  only  on  those  who  vote  them  :  genuine  and 
patient  consultation  of  a  people,  congenial  to  Christianity, 
and  next  to  impossible  in  government  to-day,  economically 
and  racially  competitive :  necessary  overriding  of  con- 
scientious minorities  (issue  unsuspected  by  earlier  reformers) 
cannot  be  reconciled  with  Christian  principle  .  .  .     325 


xl  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


§  3.  This  ideal  of  patient  *  democracy '  full  of  concern  for  the  weaker 
brethren,  only  found  to-day  in  Christianity :  elsewhere  other 
strange  ideals  of  manhood  and  citizenship :  general  revulsion 
of  feeling  against  the  older  policy  of  '  let  alone '  and  belief  in 
human  nature  :  the  new  types  of  the  visionary  ;  in  extremes  of 
Nietzsche  and  Hartmann  :  in  either  case  the  present  valueless 
except  as  a  bridge  to  the  future  in  which  we  have  no  share : 
but  the  people  demand  (with  perfect  justice)  immediate 
fruition :  Christianity  reinforces  this  claim :  both  restore  to 
man  his  confidence  and  self-respect,  seriously  menaced  in  all 
other  systems    .......     327 

§  4.  Is  human  nature  to  be  trusted  or  not  ?  Machiavelli  and  Hobbes, 
Luther  and  Rousseau :  Mediaeval  respect  for  '  Will  of  the 
People,'  and  aboriginal  rights  of  individual  unit :  tenderness  for 
the  part :  even  methods  of  religious  persecution  derived  partly 
from  this  sense  of  personal  dignity  :  no  authority  conceived  as 
irresponsible,  even  that  of  Pope  or  Emperor  :  moral  criticism  of 
all  rule  :  refusal  to  obey  against  conscience  (denied  in  modern 
times)  a  sacred  right ;  as  all  office  a  sacred  trust :  attempt 
at  Reformation  to  discover  State-sovereignty  above  law  :  fatal 
theory  of  irresponsible  authority  ....     328 

§  5.  True  function  of  democracy,  moral  supervision  ;  common  culture 
cannot  unite  all  classes,  only  common  moral  aim  :  its  hopeful- 
ness in  unarmed  appeal  to  innate  justice  and  unselfish  instinct : 
to  evoke  this  latent  but  powerful  force,  stress  on  personal 
dignity,  worth,  and  responsible  use  of  freedom  :  this  generous 
creed  (common  to  ideal  democracy  and  Christianity  alike) 
depends  entirely  on  religious  prepossessions :  Christian  belief 
and  the  welfare  of  society,  one  and  indivisible  .  .  .     330 

Index .333 


CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY 
AND    SOCIAL    PROGRESS 


LECTURE  I 

FUNCTION  AND  LIMIT  OF  CHRISTIAN 
APOLOGETIC 

iroifxoi  5i  del  irpbs  diroKoryiav  vavrl  T(p  alrovvrt  iifxas  \6yov 
irepl  T^s  e»  i>fup  e\irl8os. — I  Pet.  iii. 

§  I.  Difficulty  of  Religious  Apologetic ;  between  Rationalism 
and  orthodoxy  :  the  latter  rejoices  sometimes  in  magic,  antithesis, 
defiance. 

§  2.  African  paradox  rejected  :  Christian  teaching  lays  emphasis 
on  reconciliation :  modem  spirit  abandons  uncompromising  dualism, 
but  also  refuses  to  eliminate  either  side  of  the  complementary 
Truth  :  this  typical  of  the  Alexandrine  School. 

§  3.  But  sharp  contrast  is  more  popular,  and  the  over-confidence 
of  subtle  logic  :  religion  puts  no  premium  upon  superior  intelligence  : 
Gospel  message  simple  and  universal,  closely  allied  with  true 
'  Democracy.' 

§  4.  Resumes  : — the  Christian  apologist  cannot  hope  to  satisfy 
both  the  philosopher  and  the  plain  man  :  the  pursuit  of  abstract 
Truth,'  and  the  consciousness  limited  to  feelings,  needs,  and 
personal  experience  :  real  audience  of  the  preacher  the  poor,  the 
sinful,  the  doubting,  and  the  ignorant. 

Part  ii.  §  5.  Wide  scope  of  the  following  discussion  :  relations 
)f  Church  and  world  :  tendencies  of  modem  thought  and  modem 
I 


2  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

society :  precarious  position  in  morals  no  less  than  in  dogma : 
sympathy  of  the  Greek  Fathers  with  intellectual  development :  the 
Latin  Church-State  ;  authority  and  non-possumus  in  contrast. 

§  6.  Mischief  of  mediaeval  preoccupation  with  the  Aoyos-doctrine  : 
humanity  met  only  on  its  higher  planes  :  supposed  identity  of 
Philosophy  and  Religion. 

§  7.  Apologetic  narrowed  into  an  attempt  to  satisfy  the  speculative 
reason  :  importance  of  the  Nominalist  movement :  discontent  with 
dogmatic  proof  rather  than  with  dogma. 

§  8.  Violent  divorce  of  the  two  before  the  Reformation  :  reformers 
aloof  from  secular  wisdom  :  Leibnitz  attempts  to  conciliate  :  simplifi- 
cation of  the  '  credenda '  during  the  eighteenth  century  to  a  bare 
religion  of  Nature. 

§  9.  The  arbiter  still  Universal  Reason  :  general  acceptance  by 
educated  and  clerical  circles  of  the  new  belief:  sudden  and 
unexpected  emergence  of  the  '  will  of  the  people.' 

§  10.  Superficial  optimism  of  the  Age  of  Enlightenment :  pro- 
found ignorance  of  average  human  nature :  claims  of  the  heart 
against  the  head  :  only  recent  recognition  of  the  emotional  or  sub- 
conscious forces  which  sway  society. 

§  II.  Real  simplicity  of  the  motives  of  revolution,  economic 
rather  than  social :  '  will  of  the  people '  reacts  towards  Caesarism 
and  efficiency. 

§  12.  Sum  :  the  apologist  resembles  Telemachus  between  the 
gladiators :  the  attempted  reconcilement  or  identification  of 
Philosophy  and  Religion  has  twice  failed  :  are  there  symptoms  of 
a  new  disappointment  to-day  ? 

§  I  The  task  of  the  Christian  apologist  is  beset 
with  one  very  real  and  perhaps  insuperable  difficulty. 
He  stands  intermediate  between  two  classes  of  minds 
which  he  can  never  hope  to  satisfy.  Any  attempt  to 
create  a  philosophy  of  Religion  is  in  a  similar  plight. 
The  earliest  Rationalist,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  inter- 
preting the  apostolic  precept  of  my  text,  in  a  more 
liberal  spirit  than  heretofore,  found  himself  between  the 
two  parties  of  pagan  wisdom  and  enlightenment,  of 
Christian  orthodoxy  and  unquestioning  faith.  To  the 
one,  such  a  programme  of  compromise  seemed  fore- 
doomed to  failure,  because  they  could  not  start  upon  a 
common  definition  of  the  Divine  Attributes :  to  the 
other,  it  was   both  arrogant  and  superfluous ;   if  God 


FUNCTION  AND  LIMITS  3 

had  spoken  with  authority,  man  had  not  to  question  or 
to  understand,  but  to  obey.  The  School  of  Carthage, 
with  its  disparagement  of  the  part  of  man  in  the  scheme 
of  salvation,  soon  to  become  traditional,  delighted  in 
the  paradox  which  despised  reconciliation :  quia  int- 
possibile^  quia  incredibile^  neque  quia  bonum  est  sed 
quia  Deus  prcecepit.  The  moral  law  tended  to  become 
(as  with  Duns  Scotus)  a  mere  arbitrary  command, 
expression  of  an  absolute  will ;  with  Lactantius,  a  mere 
painful  condition  of  future  blessedness,  which  appealed 
to  a  far-sighted  Hedonism.  The  Divine  Grace  became 
a  magical  gift,  which  lay  side  by  side  with  man's  mental 
equipment  or  absorbed  it  altogether :  just  as  with  Philo 
the  sun  of  Abraham's  reason  has  to  set  before  God's 
voice  can  be  heard  in  the  darkness.  Now,  at  the  outset 
of  these  lectures,  I  wish  to  repudiate  this  shrill  note  of 
defiance  as  a  proper  method  of  Christian  warfare.  We 
have  no  right  either  to  deny  or  to  glory  in  an  antithesis. 
Right  and  wrong,  the  Church  and  the  world,  faith  and 
reason,  the  heart  and  the  head — are  instances  of  dis- 
tinct and  irreconcilable  contrast,  which  repose  rather  on 
carelessness  or  impatience  of  precise  definition  than  an 
ultimate  and  objective  antagonism.  How  much  of  the 
painful  conflict  of  Science  and  Religion,  of  the  lengthy 
tentative  of  Christian  evidences,  might  we  have  been 
spared,  of  the  repeated  failures  to  readjust  Christian 
argument  to  ascertained  fact,  of  the  violent  enmity  of 
conscientious  supporters  of  two  independent  lines  of 
Truth,  had  the  true  motive  been  conciliation  and  not 
a  challenge,  had  the  aim  been  to  discover  the  real 
sentiments  of  an  opponent  or  a  critic,  and  to  base  a 
reply  or  an  attack  upon  just  so  much  as  each  can  hold 
in  common ! 

§  2.  Weputaside,  then,  the  African  method  of  apology, 
Tertullian's  paradox,  Cyprian's  appeal  to  sheer  authority 
and  discipline,  Lactantius'  arbitrary  dualism  of  here  and 
hereafter,  Augustine's  despotic  and  irrational  fiat.     We 


4  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

accept  as  our  task  the  reconciliation  of  the  Divine  and 
the  human,  as  we  accept  the  cardinal  doctrine  of  our 
faith,  the  union  of  God  and  man,  salvo  jure  utriusque 
naturcB.  The  end  of  creation  is  neither  the  glory  of 
God  nor  the  welfare  of  mankind,  but  a  third  object  in 
which  the  two  aims  are  blended  without  being  confused ; 
as  the  old  Scotch  catechism,  "to  glorify  God  and  to 
enjoy  Him  for  ever."  Moral  behaviour  looks  not  to 
the  fulfilment  of  the  law  for  its  own  sake,  nor  purely  to 
human  advantage.  The  State  or  the  Church  does  not 
exist  for  itself,  nor  yet  is  it  a  mere  abstraction,  a  flatus 
vocis  to  cover  an  accidental  aggregate  of  selfish  and 
combative  individuals,  seeking  either  comfort  here  or 
salvation  afterwards.  It  is  no  explanation  of  a  difficulty, 
when  two  elements  confront  and  defy,  to  stoutly 
maintain  that  one  has  completely  disappeared  in  the 
other,  in  the  spirit  of  Eutychianism,  nor  again  that  the 
two  are  taken  up  into  a  higher  and  etherealised  region 
where  both  are  robbed  of  their  vitality.  We  are  tired  of 
hearing  that  Mind  is  a  form  of  matter,  or  matter  an  aspect 
of  Mind ;  or  that  the  whole  Universe  is  made  up  of 
*  mind-stuff.'  It  is  as  futile  to  appeal  to  irrational 
emotion  in  the  conduct  of  life,  as  to  a  cold  and  faultless 
logic ;  and  very  few  of  those  who  glibly  inveigh  against 
or  deify  Reason  have  any  idea  of  what  they  defend  or 
attack.  The  true  significance  of  a  certain  change  of 
philosophic  standpoint  both  here  and  in  America  lies  in 
the  conviction  that  man  is  neither  intended  to  be  "  an 
impersonal  organ  of  the  Universal  Reason  "  nor  a  mere 
creature  of  instinct.  The  modern  spirit  declines  to  believe 
in  ultimate  antithesis  or  mutual  exclusion ;  nor  will  it 
consent  to  suppress  or  eliminate  either  side.  Everything 
in  nature  or  in  human  experience  teaches  the  lesson  of 
dualism,  reconciled  but  perhaps  not  wholly  transcended 
in  a  higher  sphere.  The  elusive  discrepancies  are  seen 
to  mark  a  stage  of  transition  and  of  relativity.  The  old 
enemies  shake  hands  at  last  after  the  tournament,  and 


FUNCTION  AND  LIMITS  5 

yet  neither  has  completely  yielded.  To  resume,  the 
Alexandrian  School  is  a  protest  against  a  one-sided 
development ;  and  one  of  our  greatest  Anglican  bishops 
has  done  well  to  recommend  the  Greek  Fathers  to  a 
renewed  and  careful  study,  broad,  tolerant,  and  genial ; 
determined  as  they  were  to  find  God  and  His  reason  * 
in  everything,  neither  to  suppress  the  human  nor  to  ) 
exaggerate  the  Divine  element  in  things. 

§  3.  But  the  difficulty  still  remains.  For  the  position 
of  sharp  contrast  is  more  popular  than  that  of 
compromise  and  opportunism.  The  early  heresies  arose 
when  a  somewhat  obscured  side  of  the  truth  was  brought 
to  light  and  as  it  were  discovered  anew.  They  were 
driven  in  the  force  of  polemic  and  verbal  warfare  apart 
from  the  needs  of  life,  to  exaggerate  and  distort  into 
undue  prominence  the  fresh  element,  until  alliance  and 
co-operation  became  impossible.  When  we  have  said 
that  Our  Lord  is  "perfect  God  and  perfect  man,"  we  \ 
have  said  all  that  reverent  dogma  can  assert.  The  ) 
progress  of  heretical  over-emphasis,  of  mediaeval  and 
modern  Rationalism,  has  brought  refinement  and  perhaps 
sophistry  into  doctrinal  definition;  but  it  still  marks 
time  at  this  twofold  yet  single  assertion.  It  is  hard  to 
understand,  but  it  has  a  real  meaning  to  the  philosopher 
and  to  the  peasant  alike;  and  one  thing  is  absolutely 
certain,  that  the  Gospel  puts  no  undue  premium  on  "^ 
intelligence. 

This  is  a  point  which  it  is  as  well  to  state  clearly  at  the 
outset  of  these  lectures.  The  Gospel  is  a  simple  and  a 
universal  message.  It  is  addressed  to  the  average  moral 
consciousness  ;  and  in  outline  is  capable  of  compression 
into  a  very  few  lines  of  a  catechism.  The  power  to  I 
interpret,  to  sound  the  depths  of  its  simplicity,  is  rather 
a  responsibility  and  perhaps  a  temptation  than  a  f 
privilege.  It  is  no  disparagement  of  intellect  but  rather 
its  complete  association  with  human  life;  its  right 
recognised  to  direct  and  guide,  but  not  to  monopolise, 


6  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

or  claim  superiority  by  retreating  to  another  world 
altogether  different  to  that  of  common  experience.  The 
need  of  a  Saviour  is  moral,  not  speculative;  and  the 
apologist  for  religion  is  spokesman  not  of  his  own  pride 
but  of  the  silent  and  uncomplaining  masses,  who  feel 
rather  than  understand  the  nature  and  reality  of  their 
faith  and  hope.  Some  space  in  my  lectures  will  be 
occupied  with  tracing  that  phenomenon  of  the  age  which 
perhaps  has  been  most  persistently  misunderstood — I 
mean  democracy.  It  is  high  time  a  careful  and 
unprejudiced  attention  was  directed  towards  this 
movement,  if  it  still  be  allowed  by  the  cynical  to  have 
any  significance  at  all.  I  cannot  do  more  than  point 
the  way  to  a  complete  analysis ;  at  the  opening  I  only 
desire  to  make  it  clear  that^n  intellectual  or  dogmatic 
exposition  of  Christian  teaching  is  and  must  remain 
entirely  subordinate  to  its  jnqral^  preaching,  to  its 
spiritual  usefulness  tested  in  experience.  We  neither 
fall  into  the  mistake  of  making  ethics  independent  of 
metaphysics,  nor  do  we  elevate  metaphysics  above  ethics 
— and  this,  after  a  digression  which  has  perhaps  cleared 
the  ground,  brings  me  back  to  that  primary  difficulty 
which  I  have  implied  but  not  yet  fully  explained. 

§  4.  The  Christian  apologist  will  not,  if  he  try  ever 
so  hard,  satisfy  either  the  philosopher  or  the  plain 
man.  To  the  latter,  an  appeal  to  intellectual  support 
of  doctrine  appears  dangerous  or  superfluous ;  and  any 
alliance  between  faith  and  the  wisdom  of  this  world 
almost  a  sacrilege.  The  intimate  and  ultimate  proof 
is  his  own  assurance  and  conviction — his  own  spiritual 
experience.  He  will  not  tolerate  a  verbal  or  syllogistic 
argument  with  its  tortuous  digression  and  specious 
episodes,  to  confirm  what  to  him  is  direct  and  im-- 
mediate.  And  the  serious  objector  to  the  Christian 
scheme,  with  his  professed  detachment  from  personal 
interest  and  motive,  his  disinterested  devotion  to  truth, 
his  elevation  of  the  universal  above  the  particular,  is 


FUNCTION  AND  LIMITS  7 

continually  puzzled  by  our  constant  reference  to  human 
needs  and  aspirations.  Just  as  we  are  approaching 
his  lofty  standpoint  (perhaps  in  some  concession  to  an 
allegorical  compromise),  we  seem  to  him  to  slip  back 
into  the  Valley  of  Unrest  beneath,  where  dwell  and 
conflict  rudimentary  impulses,  old  superstitions  of  sin, 
and  the  whole  unreality  of  particular  and  independent 
life  and  personality — and  without  this  cardinal  assump- 
tion neither  Christian  preacher  nor  Christian  apologist 
can  stir  hand  or  foot.  Just  as  he  reaches  forth  to 
welcome  the  pilgrims  into  the  realm  of  Law  and 
Identity  and  the  Absolute,  we  betray  our  sympathy 
with  the  lower  life  by  a  wistful  glance  into  the  mists 
we  have  passed  through.  We  show  too  clearly  that 
the  pursuit  of  Truth  is  not  our  primary  motive — but 
the  wants  of  the  poor  and  the  humble.  We  refuse 
to  shut  our  eyes  to  the  genuine  antithesis  there  is  in 
things,  which  refuses  to  succumb  to  a  formula.  I  am 
far  from  saying  that  all  believers  can  see  dogma  alike ; 
I  am  far  from  chilling  the  enthusiasm  or  quenching 
the  half-belief  of  those  who  since  Hegel  have  seen  in 
the  Trinitarian  doctrine  an  explanation  of  the  world- 
process.  But  the  Christian  preacher  must  never  forget, 
in  his  intellectual  interest  in  the  Faith,  that  his  real ' 
audience  is  the  sinful,  the  suffering,  the  distressed, 
the  ignorant;  and  that  the  primary  message  of  the 
Gospel  is  comfort  and  forgiveness,  a  sense  of  sonship 
and  acceptance ;  and  in  no  case  the  resolution  of  all 
the  problems  of  thought  and  of  existence.  Yet  in 
spite  of  the  difficulty  of  adapting  apologetic  to  both 
classes  of  hearers,  the  Church  will  always  attempt  and 
always  renew  the  task.  To  the  one,  the  apologist 
appears  too  recondite,  to  the  other  too  simple.  Yet, 
nevertheless,  this  reconciliation  is  just  the  work  of 
the  Christian  student,  a  work  which,  like  that  of 
philosophy,  is  never  finished.  He  cannot  lose  sight 
of  the  practical  and  spiritual  simplicity  of  the  Gospel, 


8  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

yet  he  will  not  readily  abandon  the  task  which  the 
apostle  in  my  text  lays  upon  every  believer — none  the 
less  valuable  because  always  incomplete. 

Part  II. 

§  5.  The  scope  of  these  lectures  may  seem  somewhat 
too  ambitious ;  the  relation  of  religious  thought  to 
human  life  viewed  as  a  whole,  to  national  and  in- 
dividual development;  and  especially  that  design  of 
treating  inductively,  not  merely  the  feelings  and  needs 
of  each  man,  but  the  value  and  teaching  of  that  vague 
abstraction — the  Time-spirit  in  its  historical  evolution. 
For  this  purpose  I  propose  to  review  the  relations 
existing  between  the  Church  and  the  world,  whether 
of  thought  or  of  politics ;  estimate  the  tendencies 
which  we  see  working  with  unmistakable  force,  and, 
alas !  so  uncertain  aim  in  our  Western  society ;  and 
to  remind  the  complacent  of  the  successive  criticism 
which  has  undermined  not  so  much  our  dogmatic  but 
our  moral  convictions.  For  here  lies  the  veritable 
danger  of  our  time ;  and  the  historical  method  is  alone 
able  to  help  us  from  the  treasure-house  of  the  past  to 
understand  the  drift  of  the  current  which  sweeps  us 
irresistibly  along.  We  may  or  may  not  regret  the 
need  of  formulating  a  Christian  philosophy  of  religion, 
to  meet  the  half- wistful,  half- defiant  objections  of 
Gnostic  and  Hellenic  thought:  but  we  cannot  deny 
the  necessity.  The  Latin  Church,  njore  interested  in 
discipline  than  in  dogma,  maintained  the  Roman 
spirit  of  an  ordered  and  visible  community;  and  the 
Pontiff,  as  we  know,  will  presently  succeed  to  the 
prerogative  of  Caesar.  The  great  writers  are  hostile 
to  private  judgment  or  abstruse  speculation,  and  will 
not  compromise  by  an  alliance  with  Reason.  They 
contributed  little  towards  the  larger  issues  raised 
by  the   Gospel,  towards  transforming  the   dictates   of 


FUNCTION  AND  LIMITS  9 

Revelation  into  truth  evident  to  the  enlightened 
intellect.  The  Greek  Fathers,  as  we  have  noticed, 
were  far  more  sympathetic ;  and  it  is  to  them  we  owe 
the  elaboration  of  the  Aoyo^-doctrine,  in  which  they 
adopted  a  belief  already  current  in  the  pagan  world, 
and  met  more  than  half-way  the  professors  of  human 
wisdom  or  philosophic  tradition.  We  have  not  time 
to  inquire  closely  into  the  effect  of  this  on  Christian 
thought ;  nor  perhaps  boldness  either  to  criticise  or  to 
approve.  But  it  may  be  said,  without  touching  con- 
troversy, that  such  preoccupation  with  the  theory  of 
wisdom  obscured  the  value  of  Christ  as  a  Saviour, 
just  as  in  the  West  the  conception  of  kingship, 
absolute  authority  and  external  law,  disguised  the 
spiritual  inwardness  and  comfort  of  the  Gospel.  An 
inherent  weakness  of  all  pagan  thought  now  emerges, 
and  long  remains  predominant ;  the  superior  merit  of 
the  intellectual,  and,  if  the  truth  be  known,  of  the 
ascetic  life. 

§  6.  It  is  impossible  not  to  trace  the  mischievous 
results  in  mediaeval  history.  The  attempt  of  Religion 
to  meet  humanity  only  on  its  higher  planes  is  from 
all  points  of  view  mistaken.  The  hour  of  its  chief 
success  is  in  the  moment  of  man's  weakness;  and  to 
become  entangled  in  any  intellectual  hypothesis,  im- 
plicated in  any  special  theory  of  the  world,  is  as 
great  an  evil  as  to  be  reduced  to  mere  emotion  or 
hysteria.  Whilst  Augustine  provided  the  principle  of 
authority  and  the  outline  of  a  dogmatic  system,  the 
genial  tendencies  of  Eastern  Universalism  entered  the 
West  in  the  ninth  century.  The  Gospel  had  become 
finally  bound  up  with  Hellenic  thought;  and  this  in 
its  latest  and  perhaps  least  Hellenic  form.  The  final 
goal  of  Erigena's  speculation  is  a  return  of  the 
creature  into  the  Creator.  The  old  adage  of  Lactantius 
that  the  true  philosophy  was  identical  with  the  true 
religion  is  repeated  with  emphasis.     Mediaeval  thought 


10     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

succumbed  to  the  influence  of  the  intellectualist  system 
of  the  later  Platonists,  and  to  that  belief  so  fatal  to 
the  value  of  the  humble  life,  to  the  significance  of  sin, 
of  probation,  of  pain — that  the  path  of  knowledge  alone 
leads  to  God.  It  is  certainly  not  a  little  surprising  to 
find  the  secular  and  pastoral  duties  of  the  Church  so 
fully  acknowledged,  and  so  zealously  performed,  when 
the  theology  was  so  mystic  and  transcendental.  Yet 
the  whole  development  of  thought  in  the  tenth  to  the 
fifteenth  centuries  takes  its  time  from  this  unfortunate 
maxim  of  Erigena.  Philosophy  and  religion  were  the 
same ;  the  reason  could  expand  the  faith  once  delivered 
to  the  saints,  but,  as  yet,  imperfectly  unfolded.  It 
could  enter  into  the  field  of  faith,  into  the  realm  of 
tradition  and  unquestioning  belief,  and  convert  into 
rational  propositions  the  Divine  mysteries.  This  is  the 
starting-point  of  the  entire  speculative  process ;  and 
Lessing,  in  his  Education  of  the  Human  Race^  is  the 
last  of  the  scholastic  theologians.  The  knowledge,  the 
ymffig  of  the  Alexandrian  teachers,  had  implied  a  warm 
and  personal  appropriation  of  the  external  truth,  first 
taught  by  authority  and  then  realised  by  inward  ex- 
perience ;  and  it  is  but  fair  to  say  that  this  attitude 
was  still  maintained  by  the  Christian  Platonists.  But 
the  strict  scholastic  method  was  purely  dialectical,  and 
never  touched  the  heart. 

§  7.  Christian  apologetic  was  then  narrowed  into 
an  attempt  to  satisfy  the  speculative  Reason.  Direct 
antagonism  to  the  *  credenda '  emerges  but  rarely,  but 
perpetual  interrogative  and  considerable  freedom  of 
speech  and  inquiry.  We  may  for  our  purpose  omit 
the  great  mystical  movement,  the  long  line  of  the 
theologians  of  St.  Victor  through  the  twelfth  century, 
spiritual  parents  of  the  German  mystics  and  ancestors 
of  the  Reformers.  To  such,  an  immediate  emotion  is 
the  test  and  not  a  process  of  ratiocination ;  and  the 
proof  is  experience  and  not  the  satisfaction  of  logical 


FUNCTION  AND  LIMITS  ii 

rules.  We  find  the  same  tendency  both  in  Islam,  as 
a  protest  against  a  narrow  and  literal  orthodoxy,  and 
in  the  Evangelical  Churches,  when  salvation  seemed 
to  depend  upon  a  bare  signature  to  a  confession.  But 
it  is  not  here  that  we  must  look  for  the  most  significant 
reaction ;  rather  in  the  movement  of  Nominalism,  which, 
partly  in  the  interests  of  more  practical  piety,  partly 
in  the  interests  of  the  particular,  partly  in  a  well- 
grounded  conviction  of  the  fallibility  of  human  judg- 
ment, withdraws  one  by  one  the  truths  of  dogma  from 
the  sphere  of  reason,  and  tends  to  that  separation 
of  the  domain  of  practical  and  speculative  knowledge 
which  to-day  marks  modern  thought.  The  Nominalists 
objected  not  to  dogma  as  such,  but  to  the  method  of 
proof.  The  latter  seemed  to  them  singularly  in- 
adequate. (Their  searching  criticism  was  not  the 
mark  of  an  arrogant  pretension;  it  arose  rather  from 
a  sense  of  humility  and  a  consciousness  of  the  limits 
of  human  intelligence,  of  the  strange  and  yet  impassable 
barriers  which  divide  off  the  several  departments  of  our 
knowledge  and  experience,  of  the  real  world  of  human 
activities,  the  visible  and  the  concrete.  There  were 
many  who  disguised  under  an  avowed  deference  to 
church  authority  a  thoroughly  sceptical  temper;  just 
as  there  were  many  like  Amalric,  Simon,  and  David, 
who,  under  the  terms  of  a  mysticism  similar  to  the 
doctrine  of  Erigena,  concealed  a  purely  Rationalistic 
Pantheism.)  But  I  speak  of  the  general  current  of 
that  reaction  against  Universals,  which  denied  to 
knowledge  the  supremacy  in  human  life;  which  saw 
in  the  warfare  of  separate  existence  not  with  Empedocles, 
Plotinus,  and  Schelling,  a  regrettable  lapse  from  pure 
Being,  but  a  condition  of  the  coming  of  God's  kingdom  ; 
which  clearly  descried  the  danger  to  the  ordinary  man 
in  an  inaccessible  and  formal  theology,  and  undermined 
of  set  purpose  the  fabric  of  demonstrable  and  trans- 
parent truth.     Duns  Scotus,  though  no  Nominalist,  and 


12     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

perhaps,  like  Anaxagoras,  hardly  conscious  of  the  gravity 
of  his  objection,  replaces  the  Will  in  a  position  long 
usurped  by  pure  Intelligence. 

§  8.  By  the  period  of  the  Reformation  the  discord 
between  the  unequal  yoke-fellows  had  broken  out  in 
open  war.  Philosophy  claimed  not  merely  an  autonomous 
system  of  thought,  but  to  regulate  the  State  and  invent 
a  new  ethical  code,  in  complete  independence.  The 
Reformers  rejected  any  alliance  or  compromise,  dis- 
paraged Reason,  and  rested  Christian  proof  on  inward 
experience,  on  the  letter  of  Scripture,  and  later  on 
orthodox  subscription.  The  Roman  Church,  in  the 
wonderful  revival  of  the  Counter-Reformation,  while 
secretly  borrowing  from  Machiavelli  the  arts,  the 
methods,  and  the  maxims  of  the  new  wisdom,  reverted 
openly  to  infallible  authority,  to  that  absolutism  which 
had  of  late  become  the  universal  political  ideal.  Hence- 
forward the  continental  Churches  held  aloof  from 
secular  wisdom.  The  new  age  was  dominated  by  con- 
ceptions wholly  alien  to  the  mediaeval  aim ;  in  politics, 
efficiency  was  the  sole  desideratum ;  and  implication  of 
government  or  state-craft  with  moral  prepossessions 
was  gradually  though  not  at  first  expressly  abandoned. 
In  science,  experiment  and  use  were  demanded  rather 
than  correctness  of  system ;  and  the  English  leaders  of 
thought  laid  a  not  unwelcome  emphasis  on  the  divorce 
of  intellectual  aims  and  the  religious  needs  of  the 
practical  life.  (The  temper  of  an  almost  complacent 
dualism  between  faith  and  knowledge,  reason  and 
revelation,  is  a  feature  of  the  English  temper  so 
strongly  marked,  that  I  may  have  occasion  to  refer  to 
it  subsequently,  and  call  serious  attention  to  its  latest 
development.)  Meantime,  in  the  political  field,  the  so- 
called  '  Wars  of  Religion '  burnt  out,  giving  place  to  a 
tired  and  lethargic  stupor,  to  monarchical  reaction,  until, 
in  the  closing  years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  a  new 
and   spirited  attempt  was  made  to   close   up   the  rift 


FUNCTION  AND  LIMITS  13 

between  Philosophy  and  Religion  by  establishing  a 
modus  Vivendi.  In  this  enterprise  we  notice  the 
universal  and  adaptable  genius  of  Leibnitz — that  great 
theoretical  conciliator  of  the  Churches,  who  revived 
the  almost  forgotten  adage,  the  identity  of  the  truths 
of  Reason  and  the  dogma  of  the  Church.  Into  the  task 
is  thrown,  too,  the  whole  weight  of  the  Schools  of  British 
Psychology,  and,  if  the  truth  were  told,  the  sceptical 
yet  by  no  means  wholly  destructive  crusade  of  the 
French  enlightenment.  Nothing  was  so  much  discussed 
and  debated  throughout  the  eighteenth  century  as  the 
simplification  of  the  *credenda'  within  the  limits  of 
rational  credibility.  It  was  the  task  imposed  on  the 
learned  piety  of  orthodox  divines;  it  stimulated  the 
half-serious  proffers  of  alliance  by  the  freethinker. 
Christianity  was  proclaimed  to  be  non-mysterious,  to  be 
in  fact  nothing  but  republication  of  the  primitive  belief 
in  God,  in  judgment,  and  in  immortality;  in  a  word, 
the  religion  of  Nature — a  scanty  remnant  of  ecclesi- 
astical dogma  which  was  supposed  to  coincide  with  the 
requirements  of  Man  and  correspond  to  the  arguments 
of  Reason.  This  simple  and  *  self-evident '  creed  (as  it 
was  generally  supposed)  could  be  agreed  upon  for  the 
use  of  mankind  in  the  coming  era  of  genuine  enlighten- 
ment, when  truth  in  absolute  transparence  should  guide 
the  race  back  to  Paradise.  It  is  formulated  in  Voltaire's 
Henriade  no  less  than  in  the  Savoyard  Vicar  of 
Rousseau,  and  the  pages  of  theological  utilitarianism  or 
Deistic  freethought  in  England.  Everything  seemed  to 
promise  well  for  this  new  venture  of  modest  reconstruc- 
tion, the  lowest  or  irreducible  minimum  of  a  Rationalist 
creed;  and  it  was  combined  with  a  demand  for  a 
respectable  and  not  over-exacting  conformity  to  a 
bourgeois  standard  of  morality. 

§  9.  It  may  be  noticed  that  the  court  of  appeal  and 
ultimate  tribunal  is  neither  the  needs  and  experience 
of  man  in  himself,  but   a  vague    and    still   scholastic 


14     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

Universal  Reason — raised  by  its  clearness  and  univer- 
sality above  the  vacillations  of  the  several  units.  With 
the  same  profound  ignorance  of  human  nature  and  its 
requirements,  the  political  reaction  against  an  ineffect- 
ive centralisation  had  proposed  as  a  panacea  for  all 
social  distress  the  rule  of  the  philosophers,  the  spread 
of  freethought,  in  place  of  half-hearted  and  unintelligent 
bureaucrats  and  a  Church  which  had  ceased  to  believe 
in  itself,  its  doctrine,  or  its  mission.  Indeed,  there  are 
signs  all  over  Europe  in  the  Absolutist  Governments  of  a 
gradual  and  amiable  conversion  of  the  Sovereigns  to  all 
the  fundamental  tenets  of  enlightenment.  Everywhere 
the  Jesuits  were  expelled,  and  in  the  end  their  Order 
was  finally  abolished.  The  claims  of  the  Papacy  (except 
as  a  small  Italian  territory)  became  as  shadowy  as  the 
pretensions  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  Catholicism, 
suspected  or  despised  by  all  European  Governments, 
could  still  afford  to  laugh  at  itself,  and  surrender  its 
influence  while  retaining  its  privileges  and  emoluments ; 
just  as  a  similar  unrighteous  compact  of  constitu- 
tionalism has  suggested  that  Kingship  might  give  up 
its  onerous  charges  and  become  an  opulent  and  secure 
Pensionary  of  the  State.  Of  conscientious  reaction, 
tenacity  of  autocratic  principle,  there  is  no  sign;  and 
prerogative  was  retained  by  those  who  openly  professed 
the  creed  of  Equality,  and  had  not  the  faintest  concep- 
tion of  the  meaning  and  the  obligation  of  the  Feudal 
tie.  The  battle  of  the  Revolution  was  already  won 
among  the  authorities  as  well  as  among  the  educated 
classes  before  its  tenets  filtered  down  to  the  lower  ranks 
of  society.  The  pacific  substitution  of  judicious  maxims 
of  enlightened  selfishness  for  obsolete  superstitions 
seemed  well  nigh  complete,  when  a  sudden  explosion 
precipitated  events  in  the  social  world,  brought  to  light 
new  and  rudimentary  impulses  which  had  been  long 
forgotten  in  the  academy,  the  closet,  and  the  'salons.' 
It  exposed  a  novel  factor,  which  henceforth,  however 


FUNCTION  AND  LIMITS  15 

blind  and  unconscious  and  easily  cajoled,  will  dominate 
the  great  movements  in  the  West,  or  may  possibly  lead 
to  a  reconstruction  which  will  render  future  movement 
superfluous — I  mean  the  '  will  of  the  people.' 

§  10.  It  is  a  striking  testimony  to  the  short  sight 
and  superficial  optimism  of  the  *  Age  of  Reason,*  that 
although  this  and  similar  expressions  were  continually 
on  the  lips  of  the  agents  of  Revolution  or  Reform,  no 
attempt  had  been  made  to  define  or  sound  the  obscure 
depths  of  popular  sentiment.  To  the  philosopher,  the 
average  man  was  a  negligible  quantity,  or  a  contempt- 
ible enigma  not  worth  solution ;  and  he  was  profoundly 
convinced  of  Plato's  wisdom,  in  limiting  intellectual 
wisdom,  and  in  consequence  political  power,  to  a  single 
and  highly  privileged  class.  It  is  usually  taken  for 
granted  that  the  French  Revolution,  with  its  early  stage 
of  rational  philosophy,  was  an  indispensable  prelude  to 
a  wider  enfranchisement.  But  the  popular  voice  was 
heard  more  distinctly  in  the  acclamation  of  Napoleon 
and  the  extinction  of  the  Directory,  than  in  the  out- 
cries of  a  Paris  mob.  The  real  tendencies  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  are  so  imperfectly  appreciated,  that  it  is 
necessary  at  each  moment  to  ask.  Are  we  still  employing 
the  same  term  in  the  same  sense  ?  And  if  this  be  true 
of  an  age  largely  sobered  by  careful  and  painstaking 
inquiry,  by  scientific  methods  and  by  the  widespread 
decay  of  idealistic  phrase,  it  may  well  be  true  of  a 
century  which  in  the  discussion  of  the  most  vital 
problems  forgot  all  the  fundamental  facts  of  human 
nature  and  experience.  The  new  factors  which  so  com- 
pletely falsified  the  predictions  of  the  sanguine  were  the 
discovery  of  man,  a  creature  by  no  means  swayed,  out- 
side his  academic  theses,  by  reason  but  by  the  opposing 
passions  of  blind  hate,  furious  vengeance,  loyal  self- 
surrender  to  a  cause,  warm  and  devoted  adherence  to  a 
person.  For  this  the  philosophy  of  Volney  or  Holbach 
had  made  no  provision :  for  degenerate  human  nature 


1 6  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

they  had  foreseen  no  guidance  but  in  calm  and  austere 
reflection,  an  absence  of  enthusiasm,  an  enlightened 
self-interest.  Rousseau,  who  by  birth  and  circumstance 
lived  nearer  to  primitive  human  nature  than  any  com- 
placent Rationalist,  had  set  up  the  claims  of  the  heart 
against  the  head,  as  Scotus  those  of  the  will  against 
the  intellect.  Leibnitz  has  directed  attention  to  the 
immense  part  played  in  our  lives  by  the  obscurer  sensa- 
tions, whose  dimness  baffled  our  analysis  while  it  largely 
impelled  our  action.  The  '  clearness '  which  the  Carte- 
sians had  demanded  as  a  test  of  truth,  was  seen  to  refer 
not  to  the  indistinct  material  of  practical  and  moral  life, 
but  only  to  that  realm  of  mathematic  truth  where 
Reason  has  not  to  move  and  decide,  only  to  receive  and 
to  codify.  It  is  but  recently  that  human  pride  has  recon- 
ciled itself  to  the  new  truth,  that  the  chief  forces  moving 
in  the  realm  of  political  and  social  development  are  the 
incalculable  and  the  sub-conscious.  These  act  without 
waiting  for  logical  precision  or  for  universal  expression,  or 
indeed  for  any  distinct  or  conscious  acceptance.  They 
cannot  be  predicted  ;  nay,  they  cannot  with  accuracy  be 
described  until  Time  has  placed  a  long  interval  at  the 
disposal  of  calm  and  dispassionate  Criticism. 

§  II.  But  if  we  do  detect  a  glimpse  of  the  nature  of 
the  secret  yet  irresistible  forces  which  sway  society,  we 
find  they  are  much  simpler  and  nearer  to  rudimentary 
impulse  than  the  dreams  and  the  maxims  of  philosophers. 
.Revolutions  are  as  a  rule  economic,  not  idealistic;  and 
men  who  think  they  are  fighting  for  a  sacred  cause  are 
as  a  rule  resisting  hunger.  The  sole  and  unpardonable 
vice  of  the  modern  Absolutist  State  is  inefficiency.  The 
French  fought  angrily  against  an  ineffective  and  diffident 
monopoly  of  privilege  and  authority,  and  the  irresolute 
State  was  condemned  for  weakness,  for  scepticism,  not 
for  oppression.  They  submitted  without  a  murmur  to 
a  far  severer  discipline  until  that  too  was  found  wanting. 
Behind    the    orderly    and    successful    government    of 


j£><iLiFomj^ 
FUNCTI(5Nr^mLIMITS  17 

Napoleon  was  the  whole  body  of  conscious  public 
opinion ;  and  the  *  will  of  the  people/  which  rarely 
finds  vent  except  through  a  single  mouthpiece,  guided 
and  endorsed  this  reconstruction  out  of  chaos. 

§  12.  I  pause,  then,  to-day  on  the  threshold  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  having  attempted  to  estimate  the 
relations  of  religious  and  secular  thought  in  a  survey  of 
history  since  the  Christian  era.  I  may  perhaps  gather 
up  the  results.  We  have  noticed  the  peculiar  difficulty 
of  the  apologist,  who  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case 
cannot  hope  to  satisfy  either  the  Rationalist  or  the 
Orthodox ;  for  the  one  he  is  too  popular,  for  the  other 
too  abstruse :  he  plays  the  part  of  Telemachus  between 
the  gladiators  in  the  arena.  But  on  a  very  general 
inquiry  into  the  course  of  Christian  apologetic,  we  have 
perhaps  arrived  at  this  conclusion:  (i)  that  the  ages 
of  the  close  alliance  of  dogma  and  rationalism,  though 
they  might  seem  most  successful  in  the  Church's  history, 
yet  derived  their  stimulus  from  some  other  quarter ; 
(2)  that  in  the  first  it  controlled  philosophy,  and  in  the 
second  accepted  such  terms  as  philosophy  was  pleased 
to  dictate ;  (3)  that  the  general  result  of  this  association  "X 
was  a  divorce  between  theology  and  the  Gospel,  the 
definite  (SsHiicfiorTof  dogma  anHlnaiTs^practical  needs  ; 
(4)  that  the  first  great  period  ended  with  a  return  to 
common  life  and  the  simpler  demands  of  man  in  the 
Reformation,  and  the  second  period  of  supposed  identity 
and  reconciliation  abruptly  closed  with  the  French 
Revolution.  It  remains  to  be  seen  how  far  the  nineteenth 
century  enables  us  to  detect  the  co-operation  of  those 
new  factors  whose  appearance  so  startled  and  confused 
the  prophets  of  a  new  age.  There  are  signs  abroad 
to-day  of  a  somewhat  similar  though  less  striking  dis-  v 
appointment.  The  Christian  Church  must  take  account  \ 
of  all  the  distress  of  humanity,  and  can  find  a  remedy  j 
both  for  the  manifest  ills  of  society  and  a  substitute  for  I 
an  independent  Idealism  which  has  proved  a  chimera.         / 

/ 


LECTURE   I  I 
THE  MORAL  INSTINCT :  MAN  FINDS  HIMSELF 

"  Lord,  what  is  man  ?  " — Ps.  cxliv.  3. 

§  I.  Human  nature  and  the  sanctions  of  conduct :  relation  of  the 
conscious  unit  to  himself  (subsequently,  to  God  and  to  the  State). 

§  2.  Our  aims  and  impulses  independent  of  our  conscious  volition 
and  not  originated  by  our  reflection  :  feelings  before  judgments : 
impotence  of  Reason  in  the  sphere  of  the  particular  :  the  Gospel 
the  only  possible  arbiter  between  Science  and  Democracy. 

§  3.  All  enlightenment  and  reform  tends  to  Subjectivism  :  always 
implies  sceptical  reflection  upon  the  sanctions  of  moral  and  social 
rule  :  consequent  danger  to  the  civic  ideal. 

§  4.  Such  periods  of  Individualism  followed  by  reaction  to  a 
Universal :  man's  social  and  (originally)  unselfish  nature  may  be 
compared  to  St.  Christopher  in  the  legend. 

§  5.  Thought  has  been  a  solvent :  prevalence  of  doubt,  acqui- 
escence, and  resignation :  man's  true  function,  to  return  with 
Socrates  to  earthly  duties. 

§  6.  The  explanations  of  Thought  lag  behind  common  practice  : 
in  the  field  of  men's  hopes  and  aspirations,  which  carry  them  again 
towards  the  life  of  action,  we  cannot  hope  for  accurate  evidence. 

§  7.  Motives  of  '  moral  action '  classified  :  (i)  pursuit  of  broken 
series  of  pleasures  :  (2)  active  social  energy  under  control  of 
unquestioned  custom  :  (3)  resignation  to  a  Divine  order  :  (4)  pure 
individual  interest  in  untroubled  calm  (the  explanation,  '  obedience 
to  law  as  law,'  omitted  because  it  cannot  be  a  final  motive). 

§  8.  Divorce  of  virtue  and  happiness  after  Socrates  :  utilitarianism 
disappointed  :  Plato  driven  back  upon  supersensuous  sanctions. 

§  9.  Large  concessions  by  Aristotle  to  popular  views,  and  the 
standard  of  the  average  man :  prevailing  sadness  of  later  Greek 
reflection  on  life. 

§  10.  The  Gospel  rejects  the  dualism  and  sharp  contrast  into 
which  Hellenism  has  fallen  :  function  of  the  Church  as  supporter 
of  the  civic  ideal :  mediaeval  State-sanction  of  morality. 

18 


THE  MORAL  INSTINCT  19 

§  II.  Ill-adjusted  fabric  of  Aristotelian  and  Christian  elements 
in  mediaeval  ethics :  Feudalism  and  Casuistry  fill  m  the  gap 
between  theoretical  demands  and  actual  fulfilment :  wideness  of 
chasm  between  ideal  and  practice. 

§  12.  Arbitrariness  of  the  dictates  of  morality  in  Scotus  :  morality, 
submission  to  a  personal  sovereign,  as  a  condition  of  future  bliss. 

§13.  Domination,  in  contrast,  of  the  'Law  of  Nature'  from 
1600  to  1800  among  the  '  enlightened ' :  frank  egoism  during  the 
eighteenth  century,  in  revenge  for  the  long  suppression  of  individual 
interests  for  the  general  welfare  in  the  preceding  age. 

§  14.  In  spite  of  the  imperfections  of  its  allied  philosophy, 
Christianity  the  only  universal  and  democratic  power :  no  other 
scheme  understands  man's  inner  nature,  characterised  as  it  is  neither 
by  pure  selfishness  nor  by  meaningless  devotion  to  the  unknown. 

§  I.  We  were  arrested  at  the  threshold  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  by  the  French  Revolution  and  by  the 
critical  philosophy,  after  a  rapid  survey  of  the  general 
development  of  Christian   apologetic.     But  before  we 
consider  the  significance  of  the  past  hundred  years,  of 
the  tendencies   of   clear    thought    and    of  dim   social 
movement,  we  shall  be  obliged,  I  am  afraid,  to  get  still 
closer  to   the    inmost    recesses    of  human    nature,   to 
penetrate  into  that  rarefied,  or  it  may  be  subterranean, 
atmosphere  of  introspection  where   (as  for  Hume  and 
all  inquirers  into  ultimate  truth)  it  is  so  hard  for  human 
courage,    patience,   and    hope    to    survive.    We    must 
examine  with    cool    scepticism    the    very   commonest 
definition  and  most  generally  accepted   maxim   about 
man,    and    rid    ourselves    of   all    prejudice    and  pre- 
possession.    No  vague   norm  of  action  or  motive   of 
conduct   can   be   accepted    unchallenged   and   without 
impartial    scrutiny,   simply   because  we  are  afraid   to 
face  facts,  and  try  without  avail  to  confine  our  doubt  to 
merely  theoretic   or  theologic  proposition.     Before  we 
can  pass  to  a  correct  estimate  of  that  period,  its  advance 
in  clearness  and  conviction  in  the  field  of  natural  inquiry 
and  possibly  of  public  and  social  welfare,  I  must  ask  for 
your  patience  for  a  very  similar  glance  over  the  relation 
of  man's  consciousness  to  Moral  Law  as  the  successive 


20     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

ages  of  European  history  have  conceived  and  formulated. 
In  the  third  lecture  I  desire  to  trace  in  outline  the  chief 
moments  or  stadia  in  the  notions  of  the  Divine 
Nature ;  in  the  fourth^  I  shall  consider  the  evolution 
of  the  present  political  condition  of  Western  Europe. 
The  remainder  of  the  course,  deserting  the  pathway  of 
historical  reflection,  will  descend  to  the  still  more  concrete 
facts  of  our  present  state  of  development,  the  needs  of 
society — the  value,  the  significance,  the  prospects,  of 
the  individuals  who  compose  it.  We  shall  speak  of  this 
triple  relation  of  the  unit  quite  simply :  first,  to  himself 
and  his  inward  nature  ;  second,  to  God  and  the  ultimate 
power  behind  the  complex  of  visible  things ;  third,  to 
the  Body  Politic ; — as  anthropology,  theology,  and  the 
doctrine  of  the  State.  Our  lecture  to-day  is  concerned 
with  this  problem,  the  reconciliation  of  the  notions  of 
duty  and  happiness,  of  restraint  and  inward  development. 

§  2.  We  shall  find,  I  think,  the  following  suggestions 
borne  out : — 

(i)  That  this  internal  impulse  to  development  pro- 
vides us  with  aims  and  methods  of  which  at  first  we  are 
wholly  unconscious. 

(2)  That  no  reflection  can  upset  their  value  or  destroy 
the  cogency  of  their  appeal. 

(3)  That  no  explanation,  no  analysis  or  definition,  can 
do  justice  to  their  significance  and  reality  for  us  ;  being, 
like  the  reasons  for  religious  faith  (in  our  first  lecture), 
miserably  inadequate  for  the  task. 

(4)  That  man's  gradual   rise   into  self-consciousness 
and  a  demand  for  freedom  is  followed  by  a  sense  of 
insecurity   and   by  a   return  to  the  outward  restraint,' 
against  which  at  first  he  rebelled. 

(5)  That  this  process  of  disillusionment  afflicts  the 
loftier  natures  with  a  mental  paralysis,  provides  them 
with  no  sufficient  motive  for  action,  and  sends  them 
baffled  from  the  duties  and  pleasures  of  the  present  into 
a  dream-world  of  their  own  imagination. 


THE  MORAL  INSTINCT  21 

(6)  That  this  detachment  of  the  pure  intellect, 
demanding  a  knowledge  of  essence  and  universal  rather 
than  of  relation  and  particular^  from  the  concerns  of 
life,  is  as  much  a  feature  of  our  present  age  as  of  earlier 
periods  of  acute  self-consciousness. 

(7)  That  the  Christian  religion  can  alone  provide  a 
common  ground  where  the  two  adversaries  may  meet 
and  be  reconciled,  fully  recognising  as  it  does  the  claims 
of  Reason  or  Science  and  of  Democracy,  fully  competent 
to  be  the  impartial  arbiter. 

§  3.  The  whole  current  of  European  enlightenment, 
whether  philosophic  or  religious,  has  set  towards  Indi- 
vidualism— that  is  to  say,  the  discovery  by  each  man's 
own  experience  of  the  terms,  the  limits,  the  functions  of 
his  own  nature.  Until  the  stage  of  conscious  subjectivity 
is  reached,  nothing  is  strictly  of  any  value.  The  single 
citizen  or  worshipper  is  to  be  guided  (as  by  law  in  St. 
Paul,  ntditciyayoq  kg  Xpiffrov)  in  his  early  steps,  but  not  to 
be  controlled,  by  external  authority.  This  represents 
not  a  final  and  inscrutable  edict,  once  and  for  all 
imposed  by  some  Divine  or  heroic  legislator,  but  rather 
an  aggregate  of  past  common  sense  and  insight,  ever 
accumulating  steadily,  derived  from  the  practical  ex- 
perience of  the  father  of  the  family,  which  expands  by 
association,  like  the  mediaeval  State  {consociatio  con- 
sociationum)^  into  the  village  of  the  wider  community, 
the  tribe,  the  clan,  the  nation,  the  empire.  Such 
guidance  of  inherited  maxim  it  would  be  folly  to  reject, 
only  to  stumble  blind  and  solitary  among  the  stones 
and  snares  of  life.  But  enlightenment  always  means 
conscious  reflection  upon  the  ultimate  sanction  of 
authority,  not  perhaps  unmingled  with  defiance,  and 
a  sense  of  undeserved  injury  or  servitude.  It  will  by  no 
means  follow  that  the  critic  will  become  an  iconoclast ; 
far  from  it.  Periods  of  signal  insight  into  the  ambiguous 
or  precarious  basis  of  moral  and  social  rule  have  usually 
ushered  in  an  age  of  conscious  surrender  to  spiritual  or 


22     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

secular  autocracy.  However  we  may  regret  the  fact, 
it  is  vain  to  deny  it :  calm  inquiry  is  a  solvent  and  not 
a  corrective  or  a  confirmer  of  a  vigorous  State-morality. 
Beside  the  interest  of  the  Infinite,  the  Universal, 
beside  the  joy  of  expatiating  untrammelled  within  a 
larger  horizon,  beside  the  reposeful  sentiment  and 
easy  tolerance  of  the  cosmopolitan,  the  nearer  duties  of 
home  and  State  shrink  into  insignificance.  It  is  curious 
that  both  Plato  and  Cicero  should  disparage  the  civic 
ideal,  and  should  believe  that  the  self-sacrifice  of  the  philo- 
sophic statesman  needs  to  be  carefully  reared  and  sus- 
tained, sometimes  even  at  the  cost  of  truth.  Public  service 
is  an  irksome  and  thankless  task ;  for  such  condescension 
to  the  weaker  brethren  of  the  Cave  or  the '  petty  angle ' 
of  earth,  a  mere  vanishing  point  beside  the  orbs  of  planets, 
must  stand,  as  temptation  or  as  bribe,  the  assurance  of 
a  transcendental  recompense.  When  the  brilliant  lure 
seems  to  fade  away  into  a  vague  conjecture,  the  Sage 
retreats  to  the  impregnable  fastness  of  his  own  conscious- 
ness, and  lives  safe  but  alone  in  a  narrow  if  magic  circle 
of  deliberate  and  negative  calm.  Aristotle  is  more  than 
half  a  Quietist ;  his  successors  and  the  followers  of  the 
Roman  Cicero  could  make  nothing  of  the  ordinary  duties 
of  life,  the  common  pursuits  and  aims  of  society  and 
government.  The  underlying  pessimism  of  all  philo- 
sophic thought  from  first  to  last  is  made  clear  by  the 
continuous  stress  on  celibacy  as  the  higher  life. 

§  4.  The  first  result  of  reflection  is  to  make  men  very 
dissatisfied  with  the  present ;  whether  it  is  because  the 
control  of  public  opinion  seems  to  thwart  self-develop- 
ment, or  because  political  and  religious  teaching  falls 
below  some  ideal  standard,  or  because  the  larger  world 
of  universal  law  is  the  real  fatherland  and  home  of  the 
philosopher.  "  1  care  very  much  for  my  country,"  said 
Anaxagoras,  as  he  points  to  the  stars.  But  while  we 
notice  this  constant  recurrence  of  egoism  and  abstention 
in  the  Greek  Sophists,  the  Renaissance  Humanists  and 


THE  MORAL  INSTINCT  23 

neo-pagans,  perhaps  also  to-day,  in  the  secluded  life  of 
pure  scientific  study,  serene  and  detached,  we  may  be 
quite  sure  that  such  period  is  always  closely  followed 
by  a  willing  surrender  to  some  Universal;  no  longer 
unconscious  and  traditional,  like  the  unreflecting  and 
perpetual  infancy  of  China,  but  the  free  compact  and 
the  tired  surrender  of  Disillusionment.  Such  periods 
of  centralisation  and  reaction  form  a  striking  evidence 
not  merely  of  man's  social  nature,  but  of  his  need  of  a 
master.  If  we  may  compare  the  apologist  to  the 
martyr  Telemachus,  who  irritates  both  combatants  by 
his  well-meant  but  untimely  interference,  the  typical 
figure  of  St,  Christopher  might  well  stand  at  the  head 
of  this  lecture.  Man,  however  selfish  his  starting-point, 
is  always  a  pilgrim  in  search  of  an  Ideal,  to  which  he 
can  pay  an  unconditional  homage.  Sometimes  this 
search  begins  in  the  eager  and  fiery  zest  of  youthful 
enthusiasm,  and  sinks  into  the  smouldering  embers  of 
a  disappointed  old  age.  But  the  claim  of  man  to  be 
an  absolute  and  irresponsible  law  to  himself  can  never 
be  long  or  seriously  maintained.  The  banded  many 
and  weaker  are  too  strong  collectively  for  the  eccentric  #- 
or  the  unconventional ;  the  chaos  of  religious  indi- 
vidualism leads,  through  wars  and  persecution  and 
mutual  abuse,  amid  the  loosening  of  the  chains  of 
society,  to  a  voluntary  surrender  of  rights.  Sometimes 
the  new  master  is  sought  in  a  Counter- Reformation ;  in 
subservience  to  a  written  creed ;  in  a  shameful  sub- 
mission to  a  Puritan  supremacy,  more  oppressive  than 
Rome ;  in  the  quest  for  the  *  strong  man  armed,'  who 
is  to  put  an  end  to  disorder.  Cum  domino  pax  ista 
venit.  So  too,  time  after  time,  not  through  some  single 
and  mythic  transfer  in  the  remote  childhood  of  our  race, 
does  universal  egoism  lead  to  unconditional  sovereignty. 
The  theorists  of  the  Supremacy  of  the  State  do  but 
formulate  the  accomplished  fact;  for  the  operation  of 
obscure  and  unconscious  forces  always  precedes  this  clear 


24     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

and  logical  exposition.     We  never  seek  reasons  for  things 
until  after  they  have  become  too  strong  for  us  or  too  weak. 
§  5.  I   may  seem  to  be  unduly  transgressing  on  the 
theme  of  my  fourth  lecture,  when  I  hope  to  examine 
the    relation   of   man   to  the   State.      But  it  will    be 
remembered  how  closely  bound  in  origin  and  evolution 
are  Ethics  and  Politics,  how  gradual  the  change  from  the 
hard  external  imperative  to  the  inner  motive  and  disposi- 
tion, the  'good  will';  how  difficult,  perhaps  impossible, 
perhaps  undesirable,  to  awaken  the  larger  part  of  mankind 
from  a  dull  deference  to  authority  and  convention  into  a 
full  sense  of  their  prerogative  of  freedom  and  of  reflecting 
choice.     Also,  for  political   idealists,  the  most  popular 
form   of  government   is   Caesarism  !     If  the  inert  yet 
menacing  body  of  the  Russian  people  could  be  interro- 
gated, I  doubt  not  the  whole  grievance  would   be  the 
restricted,  not  the  absolute,  power  of  the  Autocrat,  who 
to  them  at  least  stands  for  God's  vicegerent,  the  only 
intelligible  repositary  of  plenary  power.     Still  it  is  high 
time  that  we  tried  to  come   closer  to  man  in  himself, 
and  to  explore  the  various  explanations  which  he  has 
given  for  lines  of  conduct  and  behaviour  which  in  their 
early  stages   were  spontaneous  and  unquestioning.     It 
is  this  unconscious  vigour  and  pertinacity  of  primitive 
man,  wherever  found,  that  suggested  the  modern  doctrine 
of  blind  and  inscrutable  Force  (in  nature  as  in  man) 
working  itself  out  towards  complexity,  somewhat  roughly 
assumed    as    equivalent   to    perfection ;    and   we   must 
constantly  remember  that  the  moral  theorist  does  not 
pretend   to   invent  a  code  of  behaviour  or   to  explain 
finally  the   obscure  instincts   or   sympathies   which   in 
practice    somehow   guide   one's    act.      Thought,  indis- 
pensable as  it  is  to  personality  and  to  moral  value,  has 
not  been  in  the  experience  of  mankind  wholly  favour- 
able to  practice,  as  we  have  already  noted.     A  paralysis 
extends  from  the  central  force  in  the  citadel  of  man's 
soul  through  all  the  members  of  the  organism.     The 


THE  MORAL  INSTINCT  25 

equilibrium  of  argument,  the  blending  of  the  parallel  and 
hostile  lines  of  right  and  wrong  (if  only  your  sight  be 
strong  enough  to  see  that  wonderful  region  '  Beyond 
good  and  evil '),  the  hopeless  task  of  the  man  of  action, 
the  littleness  and  uncertainty  of  human  life  and  accom- 
plishment— all  these  end  in  acquiescence.  The  spectacle 
of  Universal  Law,  which  seemed  to  early  Stoics  a  lesson 
of  comfort  and  trustful  peace,  taught  Aurelius  either  a 
mystical  worship  of  the  unknown  (to  which  secretly 
returned  a  more  personal  conception  of  God,  a  more 
intimate  communion  and  sympathy  of  the  Divine  and 
human),  or  a  horrid  doubt  whether  after  all  the  world 
he  deified  bore  any  correspondence  to  the  virtue  or  the 
hopes  of  man.  As  a  tired  and  worn-out  civilisation 
must  seek  new  strength  among  barbarous  recruits, 
so  from  the  primitive  and  rudimentary  impulses  (lying 
concealed  in  artificial  man)  has  Thought  to  seek  fresh 
vigour,  new  stimulus  and  motive  for  life  and  action. 
Each  age  needs  a  Socrates  to  remind  man  of  his  proper 
aim  and  to  pull  down  to  earth  not  perhaps  the  wizard's 
moon  of  a  diseased  imagination,  but  the  human  intellect 
lost  in  the  clouds  of  Metaphysic  and  negligent  of  its 
true  kingdom — not  the  discovery  of  the  ends  of  life,  but 
the  control  of  the  means  for  their  realisation. 

§  6.  We  shall  never  be  able  to  report  correctly  an 
analysis  of  our  own  earlier  and  untutored  process, 
whether  in  thought  or  action.  We  act  and  attempt  to 
'give  an  account'  of  the  action  which  has  'gone  out 
of  us.'  It  is  harder,  much  harder,  than  to  explain  (as 
in  our  first  discourse)  the  reason  of  the  hope  that  is  in 
us.  For  in  a  large  measure  this  hope  (the  form  our 
religious  aspirations  must  take)  rests  on  this  self-same 
half-reflected  action,  to  which,  as  to  mediaeval  dogma, 
the  proof  was  so  inadequate,  yet  in  value  and  signi- 
ficance so  genuine.  But  the  action  itself  is  some- 
thing immediate  and  direct.  Behind  it  lie  forces 
that    defy    calculation,    forces    not    merely    of    early 


26     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

training,  imitation,  precedent,  custom,  fear,  restraint, 
but  of  the  subconscious  self  and  the  whole  puzzle  of 
a  single  or  a  multiple  personality.  How  paltry  the 
prudential  maxims  of  the  Seven  Sages,  the  Ionic  men 
of  science,  beside  the  natural  wealth  of  virtuous  attain- 
ment, and  constant  love  of  children,  of  friends,  and 
country,  which  I  doubt  not  was  as  familiar  as  to-day,  yet 
so  irreducible  to  formula  !  Can  anything  be  more  amaz- 
ing than  the  false  and  brutal  egoism  of  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries,  accepted  as  the  sovereign 
source  of  all  action  by  philosophers  the  most  kindly 
and  benevolent,  when  in  their  common  daily  experience, 
in  the  average  man  of  the  time,  unreflecting  love  and 
unselfishness  must  at  each  moment  have  given  the  lie 
to  their  creed !  (Quite  disinterested  I  cannot  call  it ; 
for  love,  which  is  its  own  immediate  reward,  never  counts 
the  sacrifice,  nor  puzzles  whether  it  is  surrendering  the 
true  self  or  the  phenomenal  self  or  the  not-self;  love, 
which  is  inapt  for  casuistry,  and  blushes  only  if  it  is 
required  to  confess  its  aim.)  Man  is  always  both  better 
and  worse  than  his  creed  or  his  principles.  We  shall 
expect  here  no  logical  clearness,  no  symmetry  of 
arrangement,  no  final  and  convincing  argument;  only 
attempts  to  illumine  with  feeble  torches  the  darkness  of 
that  current  which  rises  within  us  from  some  unknown 
source,  and  tends  to  some  unknown  goal. 

§  7.  The  motives  of  moral  action,  when  it  has  become 
aware  of  itself,  may  be  classified  somewhat  as  follows : 
(i)  the  pursuit  of  a  broken  series  of  momentary 
pleasures;  (2)  the  conventional  aim  of  domestic  and 
social  welfare,  active  energy  in  the  public  service; 
(3)  the  resignation  of  the  cosmopolitan  to  a  fated  and 
necessary  external  order,  conceived  as  Reason  or  Destiny 
(or,  in  religious  natures,  as  the  will  of  Heaven) ;  (4)  a 
purely  personal  preoccupation,  with  a  view  to  cheerful- 
ness and  tranquillity  of  mind,  such  as  throughout  ^^Greek 
subjective  schools,  from  the  Bvdvfjuiri  of  Democritus  to  the 


THE  MORAL  INSTINCT  27 

urdhioc  of  the  last  Stoic,  the  arapa|/a  of  the  last  Sceptic 
and  Epicurean,  maintained  itself  as  the  true  principle  of 
egoistic  Morals  in  their  fancied  independence  of  all 
things  external  to  consciousness.  These  stages  corre- 
spond roughly  to  the  ages  of  man — infancy^  with  its 
fleeting  and  inconstant  criterion ;  youths  with  its  generous 
but  soon  discouraged  idealism ;  middle  age^  recognising 
the  limits  of  endeavour  and  the  strange  powers  that 
thwart  man's  work;  and  the  contentment  of  the  old 
saved  from  needless  pain  by  the  blunting  of  sympathies 
and  the  simple  enjoyment  of  retrospect  over  the  whole 
span  of  life.  But  we  may  rapidly  dismiss  the  first, 
corresponding  to  the  Cyrenaic  temper,  because  it  is,  in 
strictness,  never  found  ;  both  in  human  experience  as 
well  as  in  the  schools  of  Hellenism  it  soon  settles  down 
into  a  less  ambitious  pursuit  of  settled  and  life-long 
calm,  which,  in  despair  of  co-ordinating  sporadic 
moments  of  positive  joy,  prefers  to  seek  a  safer  asylum 
in  negative  peace.  For  a  similar  reason  I  have  not 
even  included  in  the  list  obedience  to  Law  for  its  own 
sake,  surrender  to  the  voice  of  conscience  or  of  duty, 
however  it  may  find  expression,  because  we  are  speak- 
ing of  the  practice^  not  of  the  theory^  of  moral  conduct ; 
and  it  is  only  the  philosopher  who  can  afford  to  contem- 
plate in  abstracto  a  law  which  waits  for  convention  to 
supply  its  content — which  is  accepted  only  because  and 
so  long  as  it  can  satisfy  its  subjects'  desire  for  enjoyment 
or  security. 

§  8.  It  is  perhaps  impossible  for  us  to  extricate  the 
term  *  Virtue '  from  its  association  with  obedience  to  an 
uncompromising  external  standard,  the  'sweat  and  toil* 
of  an  unpleasing  task ;  yet  we  have  with  it  to  translate 
a  word  in  which  the  evolution  of  an  inner  faculty  is  the 
dominant  notion,  endeavour,  and  not  self-surrender. 
Socrates^  whose  influence  lay  in  his  life  and  death,  not 
in  the  exactness  of  his  teaching  or  even  the  success  of 
his  method,  held  together,  in  a  generous  inconsistency, 


2  8  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

the  two  notions  of  duty  and  of  inclination.  He  recog- 
nised the  individual's  right  to  happiness ;  for  after  the 
Sophistic  argument  no  State  could  afford  to  disregard 
this  by  an  authoritative  claim  upon  the  citizen's  self- 
abnegation.  Yet  he  reaffirmed  the  objective^  and, 
what  is  more,  acted  up  to  his  precepts.  A  conflict  arose 
between  his  duty  to  God  and  his  duty  to  man ;  and 
one  who  had  received  a  Divine  mission  could  not 
hesitate.  His  system  (if  indeed  it  can  so  be  called) 
fell  apart  into  the  two  schools  of  virtue  and  oi pleasure — 
which  represent  permanent  tendencies  of  human  thought 
and  found  a  lasting  place  among  the  Greeks.  Plato 
appears  to  reconcile  the  conflicting  elements  (which,  at 
least  in  theory,  confronted  each  other  with  such  defiance)  ; 
[juocv6t7}v  71  Yiahiriv.  But  in  attempting  to  rise  from  a  frank 
utilitarian  standpoint  (in  which  the  '  good '  was  the 
*  useful '),  he  is  obliged  to  appeal  to  a  supersensuous 
sanction  and  to  call  in  the  aid  of  religious  tradition  and 
a  mythic  system  of  retribution  and  recompense,  in  order 
to  account  for  the  discrepancy  which  still  emerged.  In 
him,  as  in  his  pupil,  there  is  a  distinct  reaction,  wistful 
rather  than  effective^  towards  the  early  State-conscious 
morality;  though  the  self-conscious  action  of  rational 
insight  was  to  be  permitted  and  encouraged  in  a  certain 
class,  it  was  a  *  counsel  of  perfection.' 

§  9.  ^  ristotle,  like  Bacon,  and  in  much  the  same  spirit 
of  amicable  separation  of  province,  deprecated  an  over- 
hasty  recourse  to  invisible  sanction.  Although  the 
highest  life  and  its  function  is  expressed  in  terms  eagerly 
adopted  by  the  later  Religious  Mystics,  yet  for  ordinary 
conduct  he  refuses  to  go  beyond  the  limited  horizon  of 
earth  and  the  small  city-state.  He  supplants  'right 
knowledge '  by  good  will ;  and,  like  Socrates,  is  far  too 
sensible,  and  too  shrewd  a  student  of  average  human 
nature,  to  proclaim  a  crusade  on  behalf  of  pure  virtue 
apart  {xova  pleasure.  His  successors,  one  and  all,  aimed 
at  securing  peace  in  a  world  they  could  not  understand, 


THE    MORAL    INSTINCT  29 

in  an  age  when  the  old  theory  of  man's  birthright, 
harmony  with  nature,  was  contradicted  by  every  turn 
of  experience ;  and  the  early  teleology  of  faculty,  function, 
and  happiness  in  self-development,  was  in  fact,  though 
not  in  phrase,  abandoned  by  all.  Reflection  was  quite 
ready  for  a  more  daring  flight  into  the  unseen,  far  from 
the  unsatisfying  and  chaotic  world ;  and  the  distrustful 
dualism,  latent  even  in  the  earliest  Hellenism  in  popular 
tradition  and  mythology,  emerging  alike  in  the  religious 
and  austere  creed  of  Plato  and  in  his  pupil's  intellect- 
ualism,  broke  once  and  for  all  with  the  world  of  things 
and  the  innocent  pursuits  of  men.  For  it  will  not  be 
out  of  place  here  to  remind  you  of  a  truth  which  is  often 
forgotten  —  that  the  nafve  blitheness  of  Paganism  is 
an  invention  of  imaginative  historians.  A  Religion  of 
personal  caprice,  controlled  only  by  the  unknowable,  of 
distrust  and  of  fear  ;  an  assurance  of  separate  immortality 
strangely  lacking  in  comfort ;  a  philosophy  from  first  to 
last  ascetic,  intellectualist,  recluse,  and  celibate ;  a  natural 
theory  of  the  world,  which,  even  in  the  sanest,  emphasised 
the  vast  distance  between  heaven  and  the  sublunar 
sphere ;  a  society  in  which  a  highly  self-conscious  ideal- 
ism must  have  embittered  the  sense  of  the  political 
decay,  without  providing  a  remedy ;  here,  surely,  is  no 
promising  field  for  the  expansion  of  those  elements 
necessary  for  individual  enterprise  or  national  vigour. 
§  10.  Greece  provided  but  the  form  in  which  were 
cast  the  concrete  and  practical  aims  of  Rome  and  of 
the  Gospel.  So  far  from  the  Christian  message  entailing 
a  dualism  of  *  idly  confronting  realms,'  its  signal  con- 
tributions were  (i)  a  visible  personal  historic  embodi- 
ment of  the  Divine  Wisdom ;  (2)  a  distinct  understand- 
ing that  the  body,  no  longer  as  to  Plato  the  cjjjM/a,  the 
tomb  or  prison-house  of  Spirit,  should  share  in  the 
transformed  and  risen  life  of  the  children  of  God.  It 
would  not  be  necessary  to  lay  stress  on  this  but  for  the 
constant  repetition  of  the  old  fallacy  to  which  I  have 


30     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

reluctantly  referred.  The  animating  principle  of  the 
declining  civilisation  of  Rome  was  the  Christian  Church. 
When  that  wonderful  line  of  imperial  statesmen,  of 
unsparing  diligence  and  public  spirit,  gave  up  the  task 
as  hopeless,  the  Church  stepped  into  the  vacant  place, 
and  industriously  applied  herself  to  conquer  and  control 
the  Secular;  to  revive  with  fresh  fuel  the  'will  to  live.' 
/Teutonic  individualism  was  never  without  a  certain 
reverence  for  the  Universal  and  for  a  central  authority, 
embodied  in  a  person,  and,  with  all  its  lofty  prerogative 
not  over-exacting  in  its  demands  on  loyalty.  A  chival- 
rous devotion  to  a  feeble  or  infant  sovereign  is  peculiar 
to  mediaeval  as  it  is  foreign  to  classical  sentiment.  The 
basis  of  moral  behaviour  throughout  the  Middle  Age 
was  obedience  to  a  Divine  Law,  interpreted  by  a  devoted 
and  infallible  Church,  enforced  by  future  sanctions,  and 
privately  accommodated  to  the  needs  or  capacities  of 
each  by  Casuistry.  In  the  ark  of  the  Church  alone 
safety  was  to  be  found,  and  the  system  guaranteed  the 
happiness  of  its  subjects.  Augustine's  emphasis  on  the 
Divine  Will,  his  determinism  reflecting  both  the  deepest 
personal  religious  feeling  and  the  prevailing  gloom  of 
the  age,  had  to  a  certain  extent  chilled  moral  fervour. 
Instead  of  active  morality,  men  turned  to  the  observance 
of  the  cult,  to  ceremonial  and  to  implicit  obedience. 
Thus  there  arose  a  twofold  ideal,  corresponding  to  the 
'Tclffrig  and  ymatg  of  the  Alexandrines  (just  as  there 
emerged  somewhat  later  the  curious  hypothesis  of  the 
*  Double  Truth').  To  the  majority,  all  was  external, 
heteronomous,  imposed  by  authority  from  without, 
mechanical,  the  opus  operatum.  God  was  the  supreme 
Lawgiver ;  and  dogma,  if  rationalised,  was  cast  into 
juristic  formula.  To  the  larger  class  religion  must  have 
appeared  frankly  a  matter  of  prudence,  and  the  rule 
of  life  utilitarian.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  in  those  times 
no  higher  conception  would  have  been  understood. 
§  II.  The  opposite  or  inward  tendency  begins   con- 


THE  MORAL  INSTINCT  31 

sciously  in  the  West  with  Pelagius,  and  receives  striking 
illustration  in  Abelard,  transferring  the  interest  of  the 
Divine  Atonement  from  Sacrifice  or  legal  satisfaction 
to  pure  example ;  laying  stress  on  faith  (conceived  as 
internal  disposition)  and  not  on  works.  Meantime, 
Christian  ethics  are  curiously  compounded  of  Aristotelian 
secularism,  topped  by  a  hasty  and  ill-fitting  adjustment 
of  virtues  specially  Christian ;  and  the  unbalanced 
fabric  needed  but  a  louder  demand  for  independence  to 
split  asunder.  'Will'  to  Thomas  is  but  the  executive 
which  carries  out  the  deliberations  of  intelligence  \ 
conscience  is  not  an  immediate  intuition  of  the  right, 
but  a  process  of  thought,  a  syllogistic  process.  It 
"consists  in  definite  premisses  and  a  conclusion 
derived  from  them"  (Wundt).  It  is  because  of  the 
lofty  pretensions  and  practical  impotence  of  earthly 
sovereignty  and  the  intellectual  -  moral  Ideal  that 
Feudalism  and  Casuistry  enter  practical  life.  Both  aim 
at  filling  the  void  which  yawned  between  the  sublime 
and  ecumenical  claims  of  Emperor  or  Pope  and  their 
effect;  so  between  an  inaccessible  and  monastic  ideal 
which  bore  little  relation  to  ordinary  life.  It  is  in  the 
striking  and  significant  divorce  of  theory  and  practice 
that  we  find  the  political  and  religious  import  of  the 
mediaeval  period ;  the  key  to  the  solution  of  much  paradox 
and  inconsistency.  The  one  soars  to  the  unity  of 
Christendom  and  the  vision  of  God,  to  the  realm  of 
universals ;  the  other  is  a  record  of  primitive  passion  and 
blunt  egoism,  and  on  the  part  of  the  Church  a  necessary 
compromise  with  the  needs  of  the  moment  and  the 
docility  of  the  individual. 

§  12.  It  is  not  a  little  strange  that  Duns  Scotus,  re- 
verting to  the  pure  externalism  of  Law,  to  Tertullian's 
formula  of  the  good  quia  Deus  prcecepit,  should  be 
also  known  for  his  emphasis  on  Will,  his  influence 
through  Occam  on  Nominalism  and  the  Reformers.  We 
have  no  time  to  examine  this  apparent  anomaly,  but  I 


32     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

will  draw  notice  rather  to  the  growing  scepticism  in  the 
powers  of  human  reason,  to  fathom  and  explain  the 
mysteries  of  Revelation ;  not  unconnected,  as  we  may 
surmise,  with  its  clear  incompetence  to  regulate  common 
practice  according  to  its  lofty  standard.  Like  later 
apologists,  he  rests  moral  duty  upon  arbitrary  will ; 
for  the  "contents  of  revelation  are  incomprehensible." 
Thus  there  is  no  guarantee  that  its  dictate  will  continue 
the  same,  and  we  revert  to  the  pure  conditionalism  of 
Lactantius.  Without  irreverence,  such  morality  may  be 
compared  to  the  futile  and  conventional  tasks  of  the 
convict  prison,  invented  merely  to  keep  out  of  mis- 
chief or  to  punish ;  their  sole  value  resting  on  punctilious 
performance.  It  is  easy  to  see  here,  held  in  a  very  loose 
alliance,  elements  of  future  conflict  and  deadly  animosity. 
We  have,  though  not  explicit,  a  purely  utilitarian  concept 
of  morality ;  yet  we  have,  as  against  this  arbitrary  yoke, 
a  new  stress  on  individual  requirements,  which  will  soon 
show  itself  in  the  secular  or  religious  Egoism  of  the  new 
age.  If  Duns  is  in  some  way  the  parent  of  the  Protestant 
reformer,  he  is  also  the  forerunner  of  independent  ethics^ 
of  the  Enlightenment.  In  the  former,  faith,  personal 
and  living,  becomes  not  an  uninterested  acceptance  of 
incomprehensible  *  credenda,'  from  motives  of  prudence, 
but  an  inward  necessity  impelling  to  action.  In  its 
ideal.  Protestantism  is  an  appeal  to  autonomy  in  place 
of  heteronomy.  It  heralds  the  Kantian  reconstruction, 
but  its  exalted  yet  practical  theory  has  not  been  able 
to  prevent  the  gradual  divorce  of  faith  and  works,  of 
Sunday  and  week  day,  which  is  a  conspicuous  phe- 
nomenon in  the  Reformed  countries. 

§  1 3.  The  rupture  took  place  with  authority,  in  the 
Humanists,  with  their  neo-pagan  and  Hellenistic  ideals ; 
in  the  Copernican  Lutheranism  ("each  man  as  each 
planet  a  centre");  in  the  theorists  of  independent 
political  systems,  as  Machiavelli  and  Bodinus;  or  of 
independent  ethics.     The  entire  period  from  the  middle 


THE  MORAL  INSTINCT  33 

of  the  sixteenth  century  to  the  French  Revolution  is 
dominated  by  the  *  Law  of  Nature.*  Even  in  Thomas 
there  was  a  lurking  belief  that  only  for  the  theological 
virtues  was  heavenly  grace  indispensable ;  the  Crusades 
had  taught  men  that  honour,  generous  virtue,  and 
chivalry  was  not  a  monopoly  of  the  servants  of  the 
Church.  An  attempt  was  made  to  ground  a  convincing 
appeal  for  right  action  (and  especially  in  those  difficult 
crises  when  private  and  public  welfare  are  seen  in 
conflict)  upon  the  unwritten  yet  universally  valid  Law^ 
inscribed  not  merely  in  the  hearts  of  men  but  visible 
throughout  creation,  and  telling  with  certainty  of  the 
power,  the  wisdom^  the  benevolence  of  its  author  and  the 
coincidence  of  Duty  and  Happiness  in  obeying  its  easy 
precepts.  Its  development  through  the  seventeenth- 
century  epoch  of  Absolutism  in  thought  as  in  State,  in 
the  following  age  of  Individualism  gradually  awaking 
to  a  sense  of  insecurity  in  an  alien  world — this  need  not 
detain  us.  There  prevails  everywhere  the  same  unex- 
amined Aristotelian  axiom,  taken  for  granted :  that  the 
world  is  a  system  governed  by  righteous  laws;  that 
function  points  the  way  to  happiness ;  and  that  virtue 
will  assuredly  have  its  recompense  here  or  hereafter. 
Some  approached  it  from  within  from  the  subjective 
side :  What  is  my  nature  ?  my  peculiar  faculty  or 
emotion  which  in  gratifying  I  can  perfect  ?  Others,  more 
universal,  inquired  into  the  common  element  in  man's 
average  nature,  afraid,  it  may  be,  of  the  threatened  ex- 
cesses of  the  extreme  and  subjective  Left  Wing.  Others 
again  devoted  themselves,  not  without  mystical  fervour, 
to  a  deduction  of  the  outward  law,  whether  of  the 
Universe,  or  of  particular  and  experimental  science,  or 
of  the  State.  But  nothing  can  conceal  the  frank  and 
fundamental  egoism,  the  utilitarian  object,  of  the  whole 
search.  There  is  a  shrewd  basis,  not  unlike  that  of 
Stoicism,  in  the  ethics  of  Spinoza :  the  individual  acts 
for  himself  and  his  own  advantage  alone;  if  he  be 
3 


34     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

determined  by  the  welfare  of  others,  he  yields  to  the 
lower  influence  of  the  passive  emotions.  Meantime, 
the  conspicuous  and  unscientific  phenomenon  of  self- 
surrender  to  cause  or  person  *  for  conscience'  sake  * 
puzzled  these  philosophers,  as  the  loyalty  of  the  Jacobite 
puzzled  the  Whig.  The  *  Will  of  the  Community '  had 
reigned  supreme  throughout  the  seventeenth  century. 
It  was  high  time  to  explain  (i)  what  relation  this  bore 
to  the  aggregate  of  individual  wills ;  (2)  what  obligation 
was  incumbent  on  the  unit,  intent  on  his  own  interest, 
to  concede  to  the  general  welfare.  And  here  again  we 
are  brought  up  sharply  by  the  French  Revolution  and 
the  philosophy  of  Immanuel  Kant. 

§  14.  We  set  out  with  no  clearer  purpose,  perhaps, 
than  to  discover  what  man  does  or  is  likely  to  do  when 
he  finds  himself.  The  pre-Christian  philosophy  ended 
in  the  ideal  of  the  pure  recluse,  who  almost  anticipates 
Nirvana  in  his  suspension  of  judgment,  of  will,  of 
intellect.  Christianity  was  from  the  first  universal  and 
democratic^  in  the  only  true  sense  of  adaptation  to  the 
common  needs  of  average  mankind.  It  was  compelled  to 
take  the  form  of  law  and  authority  with  its  young  pupils, 
who  burst  so  gaily  into  the  moribund  society  of  Rome. 
The  secular  and  religious  reform  reinstated  the  ideal, 
always  acknowledged  but  never  widely  practical,  of 
private  judgment  and  of  freethought,  liberty  of 
conscience  and  of  inquiry.  Divorced  from  clerical 
supremacy,  political  and  moral  science  has  to  seek 
a  fresh  foundation.  Absolutist  tyranny  in  the  one 
provokes  the  fresh  attack  on  the  Universal  in  the 
individualism  of  the  latter.  In  spite  of  the  lip-service 
of  the  '  common  good,'  the  *  public  welfare,'  self-interest 
was  alone  recognised  as  a  possible  or  legitimate  spring  of 
action.  Yet  this  motive  is  as  alien  to  the  average 
standard  of  man's  behaviour,  as  false  to  his  moral 
consciousness,  as  the  pure  altruism  which  in  the  reaction 
of  last  century  has  professed  and  failed  to  supplant  it. 


LECTURE    III 
THE  RELIGIOUS  IMPULSE:  MAN  FINDS  GOD 

'*  Blessed  be  he  that  hath  the  God  of  Jacob  for  his  help,  and  whose  hope  is 
in  the  Lord  his  God  ;  who  made  heaven  and  earth,  the  sea,  and  all  that 
therein  is ;  who  keepeth  His  promise  for  ever." —  Ps.  cxlvi.  4,  5. 

§  I.  Relations  of  God  and  man,  not  as  conceived  in  the  great 
world-religions,  but  as  experienced  by  the  believer  :  upward  path 
from  lower  to  higher  stage  of  communion  (caution  against  a 
prevalent  and  mischievous  looseness  of  assumption). 

§  2.  Earliest  stage,  fear  of  the  unknown  :  second,  discovery  of  a 
Divine  protector  somehow  accessible  :  third,  worshipper  becomes 
a  *  fellow- worker '  with  God  (sense  of  dependence,  of  estrange- 
ment, and  of  reconciliation,  in  the  universal  paradox  of  religious 
experience). 

§  3.  Service  in  a  cause  beyond  self,  a  primitive  impulse  not  due 
to  reflection  :  the  chief  spring  of  religious  influences  :  self  only 
forgotten  because  of  unfailing  assurance  that  in  the  end  it  must 
come  by  its  rights. 

§  4.  What  kind  of  cause  ?  immaterial ;  and  not  necessarily 
'  moral ' :  religious  feeling  independent  of  morals,  often  subversive  : 
temper  of  the  missionary  and  the  soldier  alike  :  both  confident  of 
inclusion  in  the  coming  triumph. 

§  5.  Within  this  division  many  degrees  of  willing  service,  from 
Thug  zealot  to  Christian  martyr  :  gradual  expansion  of  the  scene 
of  conflict :  share  in  the  ultimate  success,  for  the  humble  follower  a 
satisfaction  of  sense  of  justice  rather  than  selfish  calculation. 

§  6.  T\i&  fourth  stage,  in  which  conception  of  purpose  or  process 
rejected  as  unsuitable  to  the  Divine :  mystical  surrender  to  the  eternal 
and  unchangeable  :  the  religion  of  the  greater  part  of  mankind. 

§  7.  Singular  identity  of  doctrine  in  East  and  West,  pagan  and 
Christian :  the  changing  and  particular  as  mere  illusion  and 
mirage :  goal  of  nothingness  (in  practice,  mystics  more  enter- 
prising and  sympathetic  than  their  creed). 

§  8.  The  two  demands  of  the  religious  consciousness — God  must 
be  a  helper  and  rewarder  in  the  strife,  and  a  place  of  rest  and  peace 


36     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

(Western  society  inextricably  bound  up  with  the  former  notion) : 
devotee  finds  in  God  help,  encouragement,  and  only  at  last  repose. 

§  9.  Conception  of  God :  precarious  tie  which  binds  religious 
and  moral  feeling :  a  signal  error  of  the  eighteenth  century  to 
identify  religion  and  morality  (or  religion  and  philosophy) : 
religion  has  to  provide  exemption  and  immunity,  to  assure 
worshipper  of  special  privilege. 

§  10.  Qualities  demanded  in  a  deity :  curious  pre-occupation  of 
divines  with  logical  attributes,  or  with  notions  of  power  and  wisdom 
to  which,  strictly,  the  worshipper  is  indifferent :  cheerful  sacrifice 
for  a  lost  cause  (in  Norse  myth)  :  stimulating  effect  of  long-deferred 
even  uncertain  success. 

§  II.  We  deal  with  religion  as  contrasted  with  theology  :  aloof- 
ness of  thought  or  theology  from  average  impulses  impossible  to- 
day :  origin  of  religious  feeling  selfish  :  an  appeal  for  suspension 
of  law,  not  the  recognition  of  its  undeviating  rigour :  the  later 
willing  service  due  to  no  quixotic  surrender  of  value  but  to  perfect 
trustfulness  :  curious  delusion  of  those  who  would  transfer  unselfish 
loyalty  into  a  realm  where  there  is  no  longer  a  master,  a  purpose, 
or  a  work. 

§  12.  Denial  of  worth  or  meaning  to  conscious  life  in  current 
systems  of  the  universe  :  surrender  to  the  unknown  :  at  variance 
with  what  is  best  in  social  or  political  movement  in  recent  years. 

§  I.  It  may  seem  perhaps  an  impossible  and  in  any 
case  a  presumptuous  enterprise  to  describe  in  a  single 
lecture  the  relations  of  God  and  man  as  they  have  been 
conceived  in  the  various  world-religions.  But  the  task 
before  us  has  a  humbler  scope  than  the  formulation  of 
a  theology  or  the  history  of  creeds.  It  is  not  with  this 
reflective  and  secondary  process  that  I  am  at  all  con- 
cerned. I  do  not  propose  to  deal  with  scholastic  defini- 
tion or  with  ecclesiastical  institutions,  but  solely  with 
the  simpler  and  personal  belief  or  need,  which,  though 
often  suppressed  and  concealed  by  the  over-weight, 
forms  the  only  substantial  foundation  for  the  too 
symmetrical  fabric  which  is  reared  above  it.  We  shall 
not  even  have  to  traverse  the  devious  bypaths  of 
primitive  savage  cult.  It  will  be  easy,  without  venturing 
beyond  our  experience  or  our  own  contemporaries,  to 
exhaust  the  various  conceptions  men  form  of  the  Divine 


THE  RELIGIOUS  IMPULSE  37 

Being,  or  perhaps  more  accurately  the  different  attitudes 
the  human  soul   can   assume   in   the   presence  of  the 
Unseen.     It  will  be  found  that  there  are  roughly  four 
stages  corresponding  sometimes  to  a  personal,  sometimes 
to  a  historical,  progress  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  plane. 
(At  this  stage  in  our  inquiry,  I  confess  that  I  employ 
these  words  higher  and  lower  with  very  great  reluctance, 
and  always  premising  *in  the  popular  sense.'     For   a 
very  large  part  of  ethical,  social,  and  strictly  philosophical 
writing  in  the  last  century  has  been  made  valueless  by 
a  loose  employment  of  familiar  terms,  by  an  unjustified 
appeal,  even  in  treatises  of  professed  scientific  exactness, 
to   current   and    popular  prepossession.     Even  from  a 
strictly  impartial  standpoint  of  inquiry,  men  cannot  rid 
themselves,  when  dealing  with  certain  subjects,  of  those 
ordinary  vague    notions   with   which    average    human 
nature  makes  shift  to  pass  somehow  through  life.     Two 
instances  will  readily  occur :  (i)  the  steady  persistence 
of  regarding   that   which   is   later   in   development   as 
somehow   ipso  facto  higher    and    better,   applying  an 
unknown  standard  of  values,  or  else  reverting  to  the 
traditional    norm,  which  was  annulled  in  every  other 
department  by  the  universal  protest  against  teleology ; 
(2)  the  unwarranted  assumption  that  a  special  and  in  many 
ways  imperfect  and  inconvenient  ethical  system  would 
of  necessity  survive  the  overthrow  of  its  dogmatic  basis. 
This  reluctance  to  examine  closely  the  primary  assump- 
tions and  prejudices  on  which  the  commerce  of  mortals 
is  based,  will  be  found  to  be  a  peculiar  feature  of  modern 
thought ;  the  rare  exceptions,  where  the  callous  scrutiny 
and  doubt  prevalent  in  theological  debate  is  permitted 
also  in  social  and  moral  life,  are  supposed  to  be  due  to 
madness  or  the  love   of  paradox  and  mere  academic 
thesis.     And  yet,  silent  but  irresistible  forces  are  under- 
mining just   those   practical   hypotheses  which  to-day 
men  reverence  with  universal  lip-service  and  proclaim 
as  primary  and  indisputable  axioms. 


38     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

§  2.  The  first  stage  is,  of  course,  bare   fear  of  the 
unknown,    the    capricious ;    whether    the    incalculable 
violence  of  a  natural  element,  or  the  strange  desires  of 
some  departed  ancestor,  which,  in  his  translation  to  the 
novel  powers   and   conditions  of  another  life,  can   no 
longer  be  foreseen  or  expected.     At  this  point,  ironical 
obscurity  veils  the  purpose  and  the  wishes  of  the  higher 
powers.     (The  doctrine  of  Nemesis,  it  may  be  mentioned, 
is  perhaps  a  further  development  of  this  feeling  of  help- 
less dismay  before  the  unknown.     The  Divine  counsels 
are  indecipherable  except  in  this  one  respect :  the  gods 
are  clearly  anxious  to  keep  men  in  their  proper  place. 
Yet  with  this  an  element  of  certainty,  of  fixed  policy, 
has  crept  in  to  share  and  perhaps  modify  the  influence 
of  the  primitive  fear.)     At  this  epoch,  too,  emerges  the 
priestly  caste,  as  interpreters  of  the  favour  or  displeasure 
of  the  gods ;    and  it  would  be  difficult  to  determine 
whether  the  mythical  equality  of  mankind  in  tribe  or 
village  gave  way  first  to  the  fear  of  neighbours  and  the 
need  of  a  war-leader,  or  to  the  no  less  genuine  terror  of 
the  unseen,  and  the  acceptance  of  a  ruling  class  claiming 
a  direct  and  exclusive  revelation.     I  need  not  here  say 
more  than  that  the  two  protective  and  mediating  offices 
are  often  found  united  in  the  same  person  or  caste, — the 
pontiff-king,  the  warrior-priest  are  familiar  features  in 
early  civilisation, — the  definite  severance  of  military  and 
sacerdotal  function  argues  a  comparatively  late  develop- 
ment.    I  hasten  to  the  second  stage,  where  the  grateful 
sense  of  relief  in  finding  a  Divine  guardian-protector 
succeeds  and   overpowers   the   primitive  terror  of  the 
unknown.  iThis  is  strictly  the  beginning  of  personal 
religion  (wfth  which  the  dogmatic  or  institutional  super- 
structure has  been  so  often  and  so  mischievously  con- 
founded).     Here  is  found  by  the  rare  and  fortunate 
votary  a  direct  and  immediate  access  to  one  who  can 
help  and  can  be  understood,  without  resort  to  the  formal 
calendars  or  mysterious  rites  of  propitiation  which  form 


THE  RELIGIOUS  IMPULSE  39 

the  peculiar  province  of  the  hieratic  caste.  What  the 
worshipper  gains  in  certainty  and  affection  (gradually 
supplanting  terror  of  sheer  caprice)  he  will  perhaps  lose 
in  efficacy  or  universality;  the  patron  or  tutelar  will, 
for  his  very  nearness,  enjoy  a  restricted  prerogative  in 
a  narrow  sphere ;  and  still  behind  him  loom  the  gigantic 
and  shadowy  forms  of  earlier  and  malignant  powers 
— Fate,  Demogorgon,  and  the  Giants  of  Norse  fable. 
Nevertheless,  the  gain  far  outweighs  the  loss — a  more 
intimate  communion,  a  deepening  devotion,  a  prayer 
which  is  always  a  demand  for  aid,  protection,  encourage- 
ment, yet  can  sometimes  rise  (or  sink)  to  a  humble  self- 
surrender.  At  this  stage  we  have  all  the  familiar  features 
which  are  essential  to  every  religion — the  sense  of  depend- 
ence on  the  national  or  chosen  Protector,  the  sense  of 
alienation  or  estrangement  or  remoteness  (by  deliberate 
or  unwilling  guilt),  and  the  sense  (such  is  the  eternal 
and  significant  paradox  of  the  religious  consciousness !) 
of  intimacy  and  reconciliation.  And  here  we  pass 
almost  insensibly  to  the  third  stage,  which  is  closer  to 
the  current  views  on  Religion — such,  at  least,  as  are 
openly  avowed.  Instead  of  the  naive  and  selfish  orison 
of  the  votary  on  behalf  of  some  concrete  benefit  within 
the  competence  of  the  tutelar  to  bestow,  there  comes  a 
revelation  of  a  Divine  purpose,  into  which  is  summoned 
his  loyalty,  his  joyous  co-operation.  He  becomes  a 
'fellow-worker  with  God.'  The  horizon  is  no  longer 
limited  to  the  satisfaction  of  earthly  desires :  it  widens 
to  disclose  the  fullest  partnership  in  a  Divine  scheme. 
The  sense  of  human  dignity  is  thereby  infinitely 
enhanced.  Saint  Christopher  has  found  at  last  the 
Master,  in  whose  service  it  is  no  shame  to  work.  With 
the  curious  indifference  to  logical  consistency  which 
the  religious  mind  entertains,  the  Divine  agent,  proudly 
aware  of  his  mission  and  his  mandate,  forgets  or  despises 
his  own  selfish  interests,  and  pours  contempt  on  his 
creaturehood,  in  complete  self-abasement,  while  on  the 


40     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

other  side  he  '  magnifies  his  office '  as  the  interpreter  of 
the  Divine  Word,  as  partner  in  the  heavenly  counsel. 

§  3.  No  one  can  doubt  for  a  moment  that  it  is  this 
temper  alone,  this  inspiriting  sense  of  service  in  a  great 
cause,  that  has  been  able  to  stir  and  to  transform  the 
world ;    has    commanded   the    zeal    and    consoled   the 
disappointment    of    the    great    religious    founders    or 
revivers,  and  secretly  inspires  the  worship  of  countless 
humble  believers.     From  the  sordid  level  of  immediate 
interest  the  soul  is  lifted  into  a  sphere  where  greater 
events  are  happening,  greater  issues  are  at  stake  ;  where 
personal  motives  are  not  so  much  consciously  set  aside, 
as  forgotten  in  the  exhilaration  of  battle  for  the  chosen 
cause.     It  is  on  this  unconscious  plane  (where  feeling 
and  the  restless  desire   for   conflict  overpower   reason 
and   reflective    prudence)    that    'unselfishness'   in   the 
strict  sense  can  alone  flourish.     At  a  later  stage  it  is 
only  by  a  generous  fallacy  and  self-deception  that  the 
sense  of  'self   is   pushed  aside.     There   is   something 
unreal   in  the  professed   satisfaction  in  being  a   mere 
instrument,   a   'potter's    vessel'    in   the   hands   of  the 
sovereign    Artificer,   a    pawn    for    the   unseen   player, 
a   simple  soldier    in    the   general's    hands.     For   deep 
down  in  the  heart  of  each  is  a  glad  suspicion  (which, 
as   a   rule,   not   the   most   subtle   reasoning,   the   most 
terrible  failure  can  expel)  that  he  who  has  borne  the 
brunt  of  the  conflict  must  also  in  some  way  share  in 
the  triumph  of  the  cause.     Did  not  this  belief  survive 
defeat   and   personal   loss,  even   temporary  despair   of 
ultimate    victory,  no    sensible     man    could    justify   to 
himself    in    calmer    moments    a    wanton    sacrifice    of 
present   good    and    tangible    benefit ;    certainly   could 
never    communicate    to    others    his    own    enthusiasm 
and  ungrudging  loyalty,  unless,  unconsciously  perhaps 
to  himself  as  to  them,  he  could  appeal  to  this  hidden 
assurance  of  final  reward.     And  it  is  just  here,  and  only 
here  perhaps,  that  the  two  discordant   motives  blend 


THE  RELIGIOUS  IMPULSE  41 

and  unite,  self-realisation  as  a  separate  being  and 
self-surrender  as  member  of  a  larger  whole,  a  worker 
in  a  scheme  which  commands  and  can  recompense  our 
loyalty. 

§  4.  It  will  be  noticed  (and  perhaps  unfavourably) 
that  no  qualification  has  been  attached  to  the  purpose 
of  the  god,  the  heavenly  cause.  And  for  a  good 
reason :  at  no  point  is  this  perfectly  clear.  I  have 
given  no  moral  attribute  to  this  self-devotion ;  for  the 
attitude  of  the  willing  zealot  is  indifferent  to  moral 
distinctions,  just  as  Religion  in  its  widest  connotation 
has  nothing  to  do  with  moral  behaviour  (in  its  ordinary 
acceptance),  is  often  directly  foreign  or  subversive,  and 
at  the  last  can  never  be  completely  identified  with 
Ethics.  It  is  by  no  means  necessary  to  this  whole- 
hearted devotion  that  the  Divine  Will  should  be  recog- 
nised as  pleasant^  as  good^  or  as  understood.  The 
ministry  delegated  by  special  favour  of  Heaven  may 
contradict  every  standard  hitherto  received,  all  custom 
of  the  tribe,  all  convenience  of  social  intercourse,  every 
demand  of  strictly  personal  interest  and  welfare.  It 
may  remain  to  the  end  so  indefinable  in  its  aim,  indeed 
so  uncertain  in  its  final  achievement,  without  in  any 
way  forfeiting  its  supreme  claims  to  exclusive  dominion 
over  the  soul.  (The  devotion  of  the  missionary  is  thus 
precisely  analogous  to  the  heroism  of  the  soldier,  who 
neither  understands  nor  interrogates  the  justice  or  the 
design  of  the  campaign,  the  prudence  or  the  strategy 
of  his  commander ;  yet  not  for  this  ignorance  does  he 
believe  hirriself  a  mere  slave  of  caprice.  The  soldier, 
however,  may  enjoy  an  advantage  of  corporate  courage, 
of  reflected  glory,  of  regimental  tradition,  which  are 
denied  to  the  often  solitary  and  despondent  prophet  of 
a  novel  or  unpopular  creed.  Yet  it  is  quite  enough  for 
both  that  the  vocation  has  been  clearly  uttered,  that 
the  present  duty  demands  this  or  that  behaviour,  that 
the  general  issue  is  safe  in  higher  hands  in  spite  of  all 


42     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

hindrance  and  seeming  failure,  and  that  the  end  is 
dimly  conceived  as  furtherance  of  the  glory  of  God, 
and,  in  this,  of  the  well-being  of  the  humblest  servant 
and  minister.) 

§  5.  Within  this  third  division  of  the  religious  instinct 
(in  which  man  finds  satisfaction  and  the  fulfilment  of 
his  destiny  as  an  agent  of  God,  as  a  fellow- worker) 
there  are  different  degrees,  from  the  detestable  zealotry 
of  the  Thug  to  the  exalted  heroism  of  a  Christian 
martyr.  But  a  tendency  will  be  observed  to  extend 
the  domain  as  well  as  the  purpose  of  the  Master.  The 
submissive  worshipper  is  no  longer  the  isolated 
favourite  of  some  partial  and  local  divinity  of  glen 
or  shrine  or  forest,  dependent  for  somewhat  pre- 
carious benefits  on  the  tutelar,  whose  power  expires 
at  a  given  spot.  He  is  now  the  active  and  privileged 
combatant  ranged  in  an  unseen  community,  surrounded 
by  visible  companions  of  his  labours,  a  partner  in  a 
plan  gradually  unfolding  before  his  eyes.  From  a 
national  leadership  we  advance  to  a  claim  for  universal 
supremacy,  from  the  temporal  protection  of  a  tribe  or 
a  mingled  band  of  votaries  to  an  unrivalled  sway  over 
things  present  and  to  come,  over  a  kingdom  co-extensive 
with  earth  and  the  latest  fortunes  of  the  race,  now 
identified  with  the  once  exclusive  Society.  From  a 
purely  self-centred  interest  in  salvation  we  pass  to 
sympathy  with  Church  or  Society,  and  finally  extend 
to  all  men  the  same  title  of  Brother^  not  because  facts 
warrant  it,  but  because  the  Master's  sway  admits  no 
exception.  The  consummation  may  be  found  in  the 
sublime  vagueness  of  *  some  far-off  Divine  event,'  or  in 
a  mere  equilibrium  of  a  settled  social  condition  ;  and 
it  may  be,  and  in  the  most  self-conscious  forms  must 
be,  closely  allied  with  a  promise  of  recompense  in  a 
hereafter — not,  as  is  vulgarly  supposed,  with  selfish  and 
long-sighted  calculation  of  profit  and  loss,  but  from  a 
deep-rooted  sense  of  common  justice  and  the  fitness  of 


THE  RELIGIOUS  IMPULSE  43 

things.  Indeed,  it  is  a  satisfaction  rather  of  Reason 
than  of  personal  greed. 

"  I  do  not  think,"  says  Professor  Pringle  Patterson, 
"  that  immortality  can  be  demonstrated  by  Philosophy ; 
but  certainly  to  a  philosophy  founded  upon  self-con- 
sciousness, and  especially  upon  the  moral  consciousness, 
it  must  seem  incredible  that  the  successive  generations 
should  be  used  up  and  cast  aside — as  if  character  were 
not  the  only  lasting  product  and  the  only  valuable 
result  of  time.  It  may  be  said  that  morality  is 
independent  of  the  belief  in  immortality — that  its  true 
foundation  is  goodness  for  the  sake  of  goodness,  virtue 
for  virtue's  sake — and  I  willingly  admit  the  nobility  of 
temper  that  often  underlies  this  representation.  As 
against  the  theory  which  would  base  morality  upon 
selfish  rewards  and  punishments  in  a  future  state,  it  is 
profoundly  true.  But  immortality  is  claimed  by  our 
moral  instincts  in  no  sense  as  a  reward  but  simply  as 
the  *  wages  of  going  on  and  not  to  die.'  And  the  denial 
of  immortality  seems  so  much  at  variance  with  our 
notions  of  the  moral  reasonableness,  that  I  believe  it 
must  ultimately  act  as  a  corrosive  scepticism  upon 
morality  itself." 

'*  Truth  for  truth  and  good  for  good  !    The  Good,  the  True,  the  Pure, 
the  Just ; 
Take  the  charm  *for  ever'  from  them,  and  they  crumble  into  dust." 

Assured  of  his  use  and  value,  the  soldier  must  share 
also  in  the- triumph,  not  by  proxy  but  in  person.  With 
all  this  extension  of  the  Divine  Prerogative  to  absol- 
ute ecumenical  sovereignty,  this  enlargement  of  the 
territory  to  be  subjected  to  God's  will  until  it 
tolerates  no  shadow  of  rivalry,  there  is  yet  a  stage 
further,  in  which  must  disappear  the  sense  of  purpose 
to  be  achieved,  victory  to  be  won,  or  duty  to  be 
performed. 

§  6.  Dispassionate   reflection   finds   an   unanswerable 


44     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

difficulty  in  the  notion  of  purpose  when  connected  with 
the  Supreme  Being.  Delivered  from  the  bonds  of  local, 
of  national,  of  secular,  of  terrestrial  limit,  confessed  as 
the  author  and  sustainer  of  the  entire  Universe,  God 
is  still  conceived  as  thwarted  and  hampered  in  His 
designs  by  dulness  of  matter  or  the  defiance  of  man- 
kind. The  passion  for  a  Unity,  however  vague  and 
colourless,  the  irresistible  march  from  the  seeming 
manifold  to  the  actual  One,  forces  our  reflection  to 
remove  this  last  fetter  on  the  omnipotence,  the  omni- 
presence of  God.  The  lower  level  of  strife  and  conflict, 
the  warfare  of  opposites,  is  for  logical  thought  or 
mystical  meditation  inconceivable  as  the  last  word  on 
the  mystery  of  life.  And  for  the  humble  sufferer  or 
the  ardent  devotee,  to  all  who  find  service  impossible 
and  strife  distasteful,  to  all  the  feminine  races  and 
temperaments,  as  well  as  to  all  wise  men,  whom  calm 
reasoning  compels  inexorably  to  final  unity — Religion 
will  mean  not  works  or  'fatal  doing,'  just  simply  the 
loving  or  logical  surrender  of  self  into  the  one  and  only 
true  Being,  the  God  of  Love  or  incalculable  Fate.  In 
this  doctrine  have  concurred  not  merely  the  vast  and 
silent  masses  of  the  East,  from  the  remote  dawn  of 
their  legendary  story,  but  most  men  of  deep  and 
secluded  thought,  in  all  ages  and  beneath  every  sky. 
It  is  the  one  certain  goal  of  all  solitary  reflection ;  the 
supreme  solace  of  the  wearied  and  despondent;  the 
single  answer  to  the  unvarying  complaint  of  earthly 
vanity.  The  final  moment  of  fullest  communion  may 
be  an  ecstatic  yet  still  conscious  sense  of  love  given 
and  returned,  of  creaturehood  caught  up  and  ennobled 
in  unutterable  bliss  ;  or  a  condition  of  all  futile  striv- 
ing relaxed,  the  will  to  live  mortified,  separate  being 
and  otherness  abolished,  the  baneful  gift  of  thought 
surrendered,  its  purpose  served  ;  or  the  cold  homage  to 
universal  law,  to  a  blind  but  resistless  working  power 
in  the  world,  carrying  us,  feebly  complaining  of  our 


THE  RELIGIOUS  IMPULSE  45 

helplessness  or  wisely  silent,  towards  an  end  of  which 
we  can  form  no  conception — indeed,  can  only  pre- 
dicate one  negation,  that  it  is  indifferent  to  the  for- 
tunes of  the  human  race,  to  the  welfare  of  the  human 
person. 

§  7.  It  may  seem  unfair  to  throw  together  the  con- 
secrated raptures  of  St.  Theresa  or  Madame  de  Guy  on 
with  the  insensibility  of  a  Fakir  and  the  cold  despond- 
ency of  an  ancient  Stoic.  Yet  in  any  strict  classification 
it  would  be  impossible  to  divide ;  they  present  the  same 
features,  and,  like  everything  else,  must  be  judged  and 
tested  by  results  and  fruits,  not  by  any  a  pi^iori  logical 
consistency.  All  forms  of  such  self-surrender  in  the  end 
deny  the  import  and  value  of  the  individual  and  the 
significance  or  reality  of  the  combat  of  the  manifold, 
which  is  to  most  of  us  always,  and  to  everyone  when 
from  oratory  or  study  he  turns  to  practical  life,  the 
one  incontrovertible  truth  of  experience.  The  world 
of  speculation  is  at  the  present  day  divided  on  the 
question,  not  of  the  existence,  but  of  the  attributes  of 
God.  All  paths  of  reflection,  of  emotion,  of  scientific 
search,  lead  to  Unity;  but  it  still  remains  for  us  to 
inquire.  How  shall  we  qualify  it?  What  is  it  to  us, 
rather  to  me  ?  And  this  conditioned  world  that  seems 
to  flaunt  its  independence,  is  it  genuine,  is  it  real  ?  Must 
it  not  be  a  mere  mirage  of  illusion  ?  And  these  separate 
egoistic  centres  of  life,  striving  and  fighting,  or  of  thought, 
doubting  and  quarrelling,  must  not  it  be  the  mere 
caprice  of  the  Absolute  Spirit  to  mirror  Itself  forth  in  the 
idle  semblance  of  individuality  ?  And  this  sharply  driven 
dividing  line  of  good  and  bad — has  it  any  meaning  at 
all  ?  Is  it  not  a  convenience,  relative,  social,  and  utili- 
tarian? Does  not  he  who  dwells  at  the  centre  of  the 
revolving  circle,  at  the  heart  of  things,  enjoy  profound 
peace?  And  this  notion  of  progress?  'Whence  and 
whither?'  we  may  ask,  in  a  universe  where  all  is 
already   perfect,  all    is    God.      We  may  see,  by  the 


46     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

very  carefulness  with  which  orthodox  mystics  have 
guarded  themselves  from  this  Abyss  of  Indifference, 
that  they  feel  they  are  near  the  brink.  However 
far  apart  seem  the  extreme  phases  of  this  self- 
abandonment,  their  representatives  move  on  the  same 
plane,  and  in  gladness  or  in  despair  resign  their 
creaturehood,  their  significant  and  special  endowment. 
Their  sole  part  and  duty  is  to  win  by  abstraction 
and  denial  the  typical  excellence  of  Nothingness, 
that  the  Spirit  may  descend  into  the  empty  place. 
(How  much  more  enterprising  and  benevolent  many 
were  than  their  creed,  the  annals  of  mysticism  will 
display;  but  this  does  not  interfere  with  the  general 
accuracy  of  our  contention.) 

§  8.  It  would  be  absurd  to  deny  that  room  must  be 
found  in  any  religion  for  both  these  imperious  claims 
of  the  human  mind — God  must  be  a  helper  in  adversity, 
a  rewarder  of  His  faithful  in  their  willing  strife  for  His 
cause,  besides  a  place  of  rest  and  peace,  where  dis- 
tress and  conflict  have  no  meaning.  But  to  average 
intelligence  in  the  West  it  seems  premature  to  pronounce 
the  conflict  already  over — insensate  to  maintain  it  never 
existed.  Here  we  reach  the  central  point  of  these  lectures. 
It  would  appear  that  the  present  scheme  of  Western 
society — with  all  its  merits,  faults,  and  possibilities — is 
inextricably  bound  up  with  certain  rudimentary  beliefs 
or  prejudices,  which  perhaps  are  so  firmly  rooted  in  the 
depths  of  our  nature  that  we  need  have  no  fear  for  them  ; 
yet  we  are  forced  to  recognise  the  serious  menace  aimed 
by  contemporary  thought.  We  have  not  criticised  these 
opposite  tempers,  because  we  have  not  yet  applied 
the  standard  of  values  to  our  Western  civilisation  and 
ideas,  to  which  we  so  easily  assent, — which  we  so  imper- 
fectly understand. 

We  must  return  to  the  examination  of  current  ideas 
of  end,  value,  motive,  criterion.  For  the  conclusion  of 
this  lecture,  I  must  now  approach  the  question  of  the 


THE  RELIGIOUS  IMPULSE  47 

Divine  attributes.  We  have  hitherto  seen  how  the 
worshipper  finds  help,  encouragement,  rest  in  the 
object  of  his  devotion.  We  have  still  to  inquire 
into  his  conception  of  the  Divine  nature,  which  gives 
such  supreme  comfort  and  can  call  forth  such  willing 
homage. 

§  9.  Before  I  continue,  I  must  explain  one  very  signi- 
ficant omission,  the  conception  of  justice  as  a  Divine 
attribute,  God  as  the  moral  Law-giver.  I  might  easily 
excuse  this  seeming  neglect  by  assuming  in  the  earliest 
stage  fear  of  righteous  punishment  as  a  powerful  motive 
to  virtue ;  or  in  the  third,  willing  performance  of  known 
commands  as  an  integral  part  of  loyal  service.  But 
there  is  a  far  deeper  reason,  to  which  we  have  already 
made  allusion :  the  precarious  nature  of  the  tie  which 
associates  religious  and  moral  feeling.  It  was  one  of  the 
most  signal  errors,  not  only  of  the  eighteenth-century 
enlightenment  but  of  the  critical  philosophy  which 
overpowered  it,  to  identify  religion  and  morality; 
and  it  is  hard  to  say  whether  a  less  or  a  greater  mis- 
take has  been  committed  by  those  who  identify  religion 
and  philosophy.  For  religion  (or,  if  you  like,  that  portion 
of  it,  that  definition  of  it,  which  has  now  been,  perhaps 
arbitrarily,  selected  for  discussion)  is  strictly  personal^ 
and  is  not  concerned  with  universal  laws  either  of 
behaviour  or  of  reasoning.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that 
in  primitive  cults  and  mysteries  one  potent  incentive 
to  devoutness  was  the  hope  of  evading  the  just  and 
natural  consequence  of  sin,  of  obtaining  a  special 
privilege  of  exemption.  The  human  consciousness 
can  abundantly  testify  to  the  frequent  separation  of 
moral  strictness  and  piety.  How  often  has  Religion 
been  attacked  on  this  very  ground,  that  it  subverts 
the  claims  of  catholic  justice  by  exception,  by  expia- 
tion, by  immunity,  by  favouritism !  And  how  often 
have  these  charges  been  fairly  levelled !  Certainly, 
in  a  general   survey  it  would  be  misleading  to  bring 


48     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

conduct  and  religious  feeling  into  too  close  an  alliance ; 
it  would  presuppose  and  assume  the  very  end  at  which 
our  discussion  aims.  Our  method  is  inductive ;  our  final 
test,  the  verdict  of  history  and  experience.  In  the 
earliest  stage  of  fear,  the  caprice  of  the  issuer,  the 
unwillingness  of  the  performer,  of  the  decree,  mark 
a  lower  plane  than  the  sense  of  Duty;  and  in  the 
third,  the  loyal  servant,  who  counts  not  the  cost  of 
his  allegiance  and  his  sacrifice,  has  passed  far  above 
the  careful  and  minute  observance  of  exact  command. 
While  leaving  the  question  of  reciprocal  relation  un- 
settled and  indefinite,  we  shall  at  least  have  done 
well  to  direct  notice  to  the  absence  of  any  necessary 
connection. 

§  10.  What  does  the  worshipper  expect  and  demand 
in  the  object  of  his  devotion  ?  What  are  the  god-like 
qualities?  Learned  divines,  speculative  philosophers, 
and  natural  theologians  have  for  long  directed  attention 
to  certain  attributes  which  have  never  in  the  mind  of 
I  the  worshipper  either  enforced  belief  or  sustained  enthu- 
jsiasm !  A  triple  set  of  attributes  has  been  a  favourite 
with  divines;  and  much  harmless  ingenuity  has  been 
expended,  much  symbolic  allegory  has  played  around 
the  Power,  the  Wisdom,  and  the  Love  of  God.  I  need 
not,  I  hope,  reassure  my  hearers  that  I  am  not  speaking 
of  the  Christian  dogma  of  the  Trinity,  which  has  some- 
times been  entangled  with  these  qualities.  Yet  it  is 
clear  that  the  first  attribute  is  out  of  all  relation  to 
the  prayer  of  the  suppliant ;  the  second  only  distantly 
connected  with  his  wants  ;  the  third  alone  completely 
satisfies  him,  and  assures  him  that  his  petition  has  a 
listener  and  may  have  an  answer.  "  For  who  hath 
resisted  His  will?"  or  "who  hath  known  the  Mind 
of  the  Lord?"  A  man  at  once  discounts  these  awful 
attributes  as  outside  all  meaning  and  relation  to  him- 
self, and  passes  to  the  illusion  of  free  action  or  the 
comfortable  apathy  of  acquiescence.     Can   we  doubt 


THE  RELIGIOUS  IMPULSE  49 

that  in  the  logical  Predestinarian  it  is  not  the  bound- 
less omnipotence  that  secures  his  homage,  but  the 
consciousness  of  Election  by  a  merciful  and  exclusive 
fiat  that  compels  his  wondering  love.  Man  worships 
neither  force  nor  wise  contrivance,  nor  the  absence  ^ 
of  limit  or  restraint;  but  he  will  cheerfully  sacrifice 
himself  to  a  Deity  who  calls  forth  his  affection,  who 
appeals  for  his  help.  We  have  read  a  significant 
apologue  of  a  poor  man  in  a  Norse  legend,  who, 
hearing  of  the  coming  of  Surtur  and  the  hosts  of 
evil  from  Muspelheim,  and  knowing  that  the  Doom 
of  the  Gods  is  at  hand,  says,  "  I  am  off  to  die  with 
Odin ! "  The  religious  mind  is  rarely  sustained  in 
practical  life  by  the  sense  of  near  victory,  of  imme- 
diate achievement;  but  rather  by  the  conviction  of 
growing  evil,  the  zest  of  hazard,  of  the  need  of  con- 
stant watchfulness  and  endeavour.  Very  soon  in  the 
early  Church  the  dreams  of  an  instantaneous  *  Parousia ' 
fade  before  the  call  for  strenuous  effort,  for  a  gradual 
and  often  unsuccessful  planting  of  the  Kingdom  on  1 
hostile  ground,  every  inch  of  advance  hotly  contested. 
The  well  nigh  endless  vista  of  age-long  warfare  in  an 
alien  land  took  the  place  of  a  magical  conquest  in  a 
moment.  But  it  is  obvious  that  the  Church  then 
(with  the  believer  at  all  times)  found  itself  sustained 
and  inspirited  rather  than  daunted  by  just  this  con- 
viction; that  the  combat  was  real,  the  consummation 
infinitely  remote,  nay,  in  a  certain  light,  final  success 
precarious,  at  least  in  this  sphere  of  being.  "When 
the  Son  of  Man  cometh,  shall  He  find  faith  upon  the 
earth?" 

§  1 1.  We  may  resume,  then,  the  issue  of  our  discussion.  \ 
Religion,  the  untutored  and  spontaneous  language  of  the 
human  heart,  seeking  a  meaning  in  life  and  a  perman-  / 
ent  value  for  the  soul,  stands  contrasted  with  theology,  / 
which  is  its  grammar,  systematic,  orderly,  and  reflective  J 
stands    contrasted,   too,   with    ethical   system   or  witl/ 
4 


so     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

philosophy.  With  this  latter  we  have  at  present  no 
concern ;  our  whole  aim  is  to  simplify,  and  to  ask  what 
are  the  primitive  and  undying  forms  of  this  instinct? 
In  an  age  like  the  present,  it  is  no  time  for  Philosophy 
or  Theology  to  claim  to  stand  apart  from,  or  above,  the 
impulses  and  aims  of  average  men.  The  origin  of  all 
immediate  Religion  is  selfish  and  personal.  "  What 
must  I  do  to  be  saved  ? "  It  is  so  far  from  being  a 
I  recognition  of  the  Universal,  that  in  its  earliest  rudiments 
lit  is  most  often  a  piteous  appeal  for  the  suspension  of 
'law,  for  the  abrogation  in  pardon  of  the  outward  or 
inner  consequences  of  sin — it  is  a  protest  against  the 
enforcement  of  a  rigorous  equity.  "If  thou.  Lord,  will 
be  extreme  to  mark  what  is  done  amiss,  O  Lord,  who 
may  abide  it?"  As  the  conception  of  the  Divine 
government  advances  to  unity  of  control  and  purpose 

Cout  of  conflicting  and  partial  ambitions  of  a  heathen 
Pantheon,   so    man,   shaking    off   craven   fear    of    the 
^^<^       incalculable,  seeks   and   finds   a   protector,  and  at  last 
/  identifies   his  own  welfare  with  the  grand  design.     At 
!  this  point  again  (as  we  saw)  Religion  is  contrasted  with 
Morality ;  as  in  the  earlier  stage,  the  conscious  sinner 
sought   by  propitiation   to   elude   law,  so    now  in   the 
/    willingness  of  service  is  the  dull  performance  of  slavery 
/     transcended.     "  Henceforth    I    call   you   not   servants." 
^    Further  insight  into  the  Divine  counsel  is  given  not  to 
the  curious  or  the   speculative   questioner,  "Yea,  hath 
God  said  ?  "  but  to  the  dutiful,  the  obedient  in  humbler 
employment.     "  Thou  hast  been  faithful  in  a  few  things ; 
be  thou  ruler  over  ten  cities."     "  Whosoever  will  do  the 
will  .  .  .  shall  know.''     It  is  a  loyal  and  personal  service 
given  to  an  object  of  proved  goodness :  "  O  taste  and 
see  how  gracious  the  Lord  is ! "     Experience  is  in  the 
last    resort  the    sole    test    for   the    individual,   though 
logical  consistency  must  preside  at  the  formation  of  a 
Creed.     The   early  selfish  desire  to   escape  pains  and 
penalties  becomes  a  moral  zeal  to  further  the  Master's 


THE  RELIGIOUS  IMPULSE  51 

Kingdom  and  make  the  world  abandon  its  vain  search   ] 
for  rest  elsewhere  than  in  God.     The  smallest  and  most 
trivial  act  is  by  this  spirit  hallowed  and  transformed — 
the  'cup  of  cold    water'  or   the  'widow's   mite.'     Pre-  / 
occupation  with  the  work  in  hand,  eagerness  to  further 
the  cause  (as  it  gradually  assumes  clearer  proportions), 
effaces  the  earlier  introspection,  self-analysis,  and  over- 
powering sense  of  guilt ;  but  this  self-forgetfulness  is  due 
to  no  quixotic  surrender   of  value,  but  to  the  perfect  -^ 
security  of  the   believer,  his   supreme   confidence   that     \ 
with  God's  chosen  nothing  can  go  wrong — "  all  things   J 
work  together  for  good."     His  heaven  is  here  and  now  ; 
its  blessedness  is  at  once  felt ;  he  can  imagine  no  other ; 
it  is  idle  to  talk   of  recompense   differing  in  kind  or 
deferred   beyond    the    tomb.     Not    in    a    cynical    but 
in   an   optimistic    sense,   "virtue    is   its    own    reward.'S. 
Immortality  is   rather   'eternal   life'  which  is   already  J 
bestowed  and  already  experienced.     It  is  clear  that  this  / 
apparent   self-surrender  is  founded  upon  the  strongest 
(though   often    veiled    and    unconscious)   assurance   of 
inalienable   personal    value.      Nothing   could    well    be 
more   unreasonable     than     to   expect    a    transference 
of   this  unselfishness   into     a     realm    where    there    is 
no  longer   a   master   or  a   purpose,  no  longer  a  work 
to   be   achieved   or   an   agent  to   be  ennobled   by   its 
performance. 

§  1 2.  Contrasted  with  this  eagerness  of  allegiance  and 
endeavour  is  that  stoical  'virtue  of  necessity,'  sub- 
mission to  the  unknown.  Starting  not  from  a  subjective 
need  and  human  consciousness,  but  from  awful  wonder 
at  objective  majesty,  the  Religion  of  Nature  or  of 
absolute  thought  culminates  in  the  surrender  of  the 
individual  and  the  denial  of  value  to  life,  of  significance 
to  the  struggle.  The  manifold  is  an  illusion,  the 
separateness  of  intelligence  a  fiction ;  and  the  whole 
drama  is  played,  with  all  its  pain  and  distress,  harmlessly 
beneath  the  true  domain  of  reality,  where  reigns  deathly 


52     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

stillness  and  the  icebound  silence  of  indifference.  But 
the  religion  of  history,  of  human  development,  of 
evolution  of  the  race,  of  enterprise  and  advance,  sets 
a  simpler  ideal  before  man,  more  accessible  to  the 
average  type,  who  has  seized  the  helm.  It  answers  his 
immediate  need,  the  cry  of  his  solitary  anguish ;  it  sets 
him  again  in  a  visible  community,  and  by  patience 
teaches  him  his  special  place,  his  everlasting  worth.  It 
assures  him  that  God  needs  his  help,  and  he  feels  that 
sweet  guerdon  of  service  done,  and  wants  no  further 
assurance  of  his  value,  of  his  immortality.  It  makes 
him  an  integral  and  indispensable  part  of  a  great 
chain  stretching  from  the  earliest  dawn  of  human 
intelligence  to  the  consummation  of  history,  to  the 
coming  of  the  Kingdom ;  and  in  this  triumph  he 
well  knows  he  will  not  be  forgotten.  When  we  have 
considered  next  time  the  inner  motives,  the  hidden 
spring  of  the  recent  political  development,  we  shall 
be  able  to  decide  which  of  these  two  conceptions  of 
man's  place  and  function  is  the  more  agreeable  to  the 
natural  man. 


LECTURE   IV 

THE  SOCIAL  STATE:    MEDIAEVAL  AND 
MODERN 

**  What  shall  one  then  answer  the  messengers  of  the  nation  ?  That  the 
Lord  hath  founded  Zion,  and  the  poor  of  His  people  shall  trust  in 
it."— IsA.  xiv.  32. 

§  I.  Aim  of  the  series :  standard  of  worth  applied  to  the 
Christian  conception  of  the  Universe  (as  in  eighteenth  century, 
logical  consistency ;  in  nineteenth,  historic  credibility  of  the 
Doctrine) :  reason^  fact^  and  use  :  importance  of  former  not  denied, 
but  present  discussion  chiefly  concerned  with  the  last :  less 
scruple  to-day  in  applying  Utilitarian  standard,  in  a  democratic 
age  which  will  soon  know  no  other  test. 

§  2.  Interrogation  of  the  recent  course  of  social  development : 
error  of  the  historical  philosophers  after  the  Revolution  :  "  the 
goal  achieved  or  within  view":  their  'Reason'  only  a  name  to 
cover  the  development  of  unconscious  and  unknown  forces  :  sense 
of  helplessness  abroad. 

§  3.  Underlying  principles  of  Western  development  in  mediaeval 
times  :  as  philosophy  is  mainly  individualist,  so  Church  always 
social :  mistaken  conception  of  the  Roman  Church-State. 

§  4.  Conspicuous  merits  of  the  mediaeval  State  :  unity  and  reason- 
ableness of  the  Church :  its  democratic  basis :  its  genuine  claim 
to  direct  and  ennoble  every  department  of  secular  life,  every 
variation  of  individual  character  or  rank. 

§  5.  No  abrupt  dualism,  of  law,  natural  or  Divine,  physical  or 
moral :  Church  less  antithetic  than  Aristotle  :  in  the  decay 
of  the  Roman  system,  in  the  proved  emptiness  of  papal  and 
imperial  claims,  the  '  Law  of  Nature '  supersedes  the  Church  as  a 
guide. 

§  6.  Machiavelli  and  Luther  creators  or  pioneers  of  the  modem 
State :  conception  of  the  State  gradually  demoralised :  Church 
retires  from  contact  with  the  world  :  disparagement  of  the  units 
which  compose  the  whole. 


54     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

§  7.  Decay  of  reverence  towards  the  State :  government  a 
revocable  contract :  sole  duty  efficiency  :  undisguised  selfishness 
of  the  new  period  of  reconstruction  (Leo  x.,  Spinoza,  Hobbes)  : 
utility  in  a  certain  sphere  (to  keep  the  poor  quiet)  contemptuously 
allowed  to  the  Church. 

§  8.  French  Revolution  due  to  divorce  of  Enlightenment  from 
sympathy  with  primitive  human  nature  :  curious  ignorance  of  the 
human  heart  and  average  motives  among  eighteenth  -  century 
philosophers  :  their  aim  not  to  admit  the  people  to  freedom,  but 
to  capture  the  autocracy  of  the  State. 

§  9.  Classical  antiquity  and  the  modern  State  aristocratic : 
sharp  contrast  to  this  in  the  Christian-Teutonic  deference  to  the 
individual :  decay  of  belief  in  worth  of  units,  parallel  with  nominal 
extension  of  popular  rights  :  value  of  the  conception  of  heaven 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  not  to  distract  attention  from  secular  concerns, 
but  to  restrain  the  ends  of  mere  organic  efficiency,  to  obtain 
considerate  treatment  for  the  weaker. 

§  ID.  Final  issue  (Machiavelli,  Hobbes,  Luther,  Rousseau)  in 
irreconcilable  hostility  ;  Sovereignty  of  the  State,  Sovereignty  of 
the  Individual :  French  Revolution  a  protest  of  rudimentary  feeling 
against  a  sacrifice  of  the  helpless  to  an  unknown  cause  :  Kant 
reconquered  primitive  truth,  against  the  Enlightenment :  differentia 
of  man,  not  thought  but  moral  action. 

§  I.  In  the  first  lecture  we  considered  the  duties 
and  peculiar  difficulty  of  the  Christian  apologist,  and 
incidentally  arrived  perhaps  at  some  limitations  or 
illustrations  of  what  we  mean  by  Religion.  In  the 
second,  an  attempt  was  made  to  portray  the  simplest 
origin  of  what  are  known  as  ethical  impulses ;  and 
in  the  third  we  dealt  with  the  religious  instincts, 
complementary  indeed,  as  we  hope  to  discover,  to  moral 
ideas,  but  by  no  means  necessarily  associated  or  allied. 
Now  what  is  the  object  of  the  entire  course  ?  A  slender 
contribution  to  one  side  of  Christian  apologetic,  which 
perhaps  does  not  always  receive  justice.  The  eighteenth 
century  examined  critically  the  credentials  of  the  Christian 
Revelation  in  the  light  of  pure  Reason ;  the  nineteenth 
has  inquired  into  the  historical  record,  in  the  light  of 
accurate  research.  Times,  meanwhile,  have  altered  ;  and 
the   standard  or  test  is  no  longer  logical  consistency 


THE  SOCIAL  STATE  55 

and  reasonable  argument,  no  longer  correspondence 
with  ascertained  facts  in  a  remote  and  in  some  ways 
inaccessible  past,  but,  first  and  foremost,  the  use,  the 
value  for  human  life  of  such  an  institution,  of  such  body 
of  doctrine.  In  each  province  of  apology,  reason,  fact, 
and  use,  there  has  always  been  abundant  and  fruitful 
toil ;  but  of  the  three,  least  has  been  effected  in  the  last. 
It  will  not  for  a  moment  be  thought  that  we  are  disposed 
to  abandon  either  of  the  former  methods  of  proof ;  but 
the  single  clear  warning  to  the  student  is  restriction 
of  province  and  scope,  a  ready  acceptance  of  the  help 
of  others,  and  a  modest  offering  of  his  own  results  in 
a  special  field,  without  encroaching  on  the  province 
or  hastily  presuming  to  criticise  the  results  of  other 
fellow-workers.  Until  recently,  too,  it  would  have  been 
supposed  a  mark  of  confessed  weakness  if,  leaving  the 
familiar  tracks  of  reconciliation  with  credibility  or  with 
fact,  the  preacher  had  insisted  over  much  upon  the 
usefulness  of  the  Church  and  the  Gospel,  had  been 
content  to  point  out  the  benefits  they  had  spread,  to 
dilate  upon  the  danger  of  removing  these  doctrines 
which  guaranteed  them,  or  the  Establishment  which 
stored  them  in  her  treasure-house.  Causes  which  will 
become  manifest  later  have  rendered  us  less  scrupulous 
to-day  in  employing  a  Utilitarian  standard.  At  all 
events,  none  can  find  fault  with  the  test  of  usefulness ; 
for  in  ordinary  life  it  is  in  effect  the  only  one  which 
is  systematically  and  invariably  applied ;  and  although 
to  the  abstract  logician  there  may  be  something  of 
blasphemy  in  setting  anything  before  the  claims  of 
pure  thought,  there  is  a  very  large  audience  waiting, 
quite  free  from  a  priori  notions  of  the  possibility  of  a 
revelation,  from  any  understanding  of  mere  historic 
accuracy — waiting,  I  say,  for  an  answer  to  this  question, 
which  has  recently  gained  in  loudness  and  insistency: 
Can  we  afford  to  do  without  Christ  ? 

§  2.  For  this   purpose  we  have  tried   to  interrogate 


56     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

man's  nature  in  its  very  simplest  terms,  his  crudest 
and  earliest  attempts  at  the  satisfaction  of  that  religious 
instinct  which  seems,  from  the  distress  and  the 
prosperity  of  circumstance  alike,  to  force  him  to  claim 
interest  and  protection  from  the  unseen  powers.  I 
want  now  to  inquire  if  the  development  of  the  political 
body  throws  any  light  upon  man's  nature  and  needs, 
and  above  all,  if  a  certain  recent  movement  towards 
securing  a  fuller  expression  of  the  general  will  has  met 
with  any  measure  of  success,  and  possesses  for  our  pur- 
pose any  significance  at  all.  It  cannot  be  gainsaid  that, 
in  spite  of  much  taking  essentials  for  granted,  inveterate 
weakness  of  modern  times,  we  find  ourselves  carried  off 
our  feet  by  an  irresistible  current,  bearing  us  no  one  knows 
whither.  The  childish  delight  of  the  early  historical 
philosophers  arranged  in  differently  coloured  sections  the 
very  narrow  record  of  human  destiny,  as  then  known 
and  conceived.  With  a  naive  glee  they  mapped  out  the 
serene  advance  of  the  Idea  and  of  mankind  (which  was 
but  its  expression)  from  the  mythic  paradise  of  innocence 
into  the  final  consummation  in  the  present  age.  The 
opposites,  which  had  alike  stimulated  and  impeded  the 
onward  march,  had  been  successively  cancelled  out ;  and 
Spirit  was  at  last  fully  free,  self-conscious  and  master 
of  itself.  Every  fact,  every  being,  every  institution 
was  instinct  with  divinity;  the  Absolute  had  com- 
pleted its  "  dialectical  idyll  ...  on  the  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean,"  and  the  long  and  perhaps  painful 
Theogony  was  at  an  end.  It  is  unfair  to  scoff  at  these 
now  forgotten  speculations ;  we  do  not  forget  that,  as 
Gnostic  defiance  challenged  Stoic  optimism  in  the  first 
and  second  century,  so  in  the  nineteenth  there  were  not 
wanting  men  of  fiery  protest  against  the  existing  order 
as  evil, — as  cruel,  incomplete,  superfluous,  an  error 
from  the  first ;  men  of  cool  and  critical  temper,  protest- 
ing that  so  far  from  the  Absolute  waking  up  in 
contentment    from    its  restless   dreams,  the    universal 


THE  SOCIAL  STATE  57 

consciousness  recoiled  in  horror  from  the  effects  of  its 
somnambulism,  and  could  only  expiate  its  crime  by 
suicide.  The  supremacy  of  human  intelligence  as 
interpreter  and  canon  of  existence  has  given  way  to  a 
sense  of  passivity  before  unknown  powers.  There  is 
abroad  a  tendency  (which  is  not  without  warrant  in 
experience)  to  explain  movements  and  currents  of 
thought  or  social  evolution,  impulses  and  actions  of 
man  the  individual,  by  reference  to  subconscious  and 
impersonal  forces.  These,  so  far  from  issuing  into  the 
clear  light  of  day  for  methodical  sorting  and  arrange- 
ment, can  never  (so  far  as  we  know)  be  torn  from  their 
obscurity  and  made  to  reveal  their  face.  It  is  usual 
to  connect  this  feeling  of  helpless  surrender  with  the 
uniformity  of  natural  law.  This  is  an  error :  that  listless 
despondency,  uncertainty  of  aim,  or  alert  and  unmoral 
curiosity  in  things  as  they  are,  comes  not  from  a  sense 
of  physical  regularity  (which  only  perhaps  opens  up  a 
further  dominion  of  man  over  his  environment) ;  but 
rather  from  a  suspicion  that  we  are  the  playthings  of 
a  blind,  incalculable  Power,  which  without  end  or  pur- 
pose drives  into  a  common  grave  the  individual  and 
the  race  alike.  "  A  thousand  years  in  Thy  sight  are 
but  as  yesterday."  The  mere  adding  up  to  infinity  of 
valueless  atoms  cannot  possibly  produce  a  valuable  heap. 

§  3.  I  have  anticipated  somewhat  of  the  subject  of  a 
later  discourse,  that  the  significance  of  the  issues  at  stake 
may  be  more  clearly  seen.  I  will  now  consider  some 
of  the  facts  in  the  development  of  Western  society  and 
their  connection  with  our  main  thesis.  It  will  not  be 
necessary  in  such  a  political  retrospect  to  go  beyond 
the  mediaeval  conception  of  the  Church-State. 

The  Christian  Church  is  predominantly  social ;  it  is 
propagandist  (nay,  persecuting)  just  because  the  dominion 
must  be  exclusive,  a  place  found  for  each  and  all,  what- 
ever race,  character,  or  special  gift.  Whether  as  Realm 
of  Truth  or  Visible  Community  (Greek  or  Latin  con- 


58     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

ception),  it  is  something  universal  and  demanding  its 
consummation  in  freest  and  fullest  intercourse  of 
equals,  though  by  no  means  with  similar  or  identical 
functions. 

It  will  not,  I  think,  be  found  amiss  to  group  our 
statements  round  that  remarkable  phrase,  which  has 
at  various  times  excited  such  keen  admiration,  such 
suspicious  distrust,  or  such  open  hostility — the  Law  of 
Nature.  It  will  be  seen  how  intimately  bound  up  with 
its  definition  is  the  political  development  of  Western 
Europe.  We  must  first  disabuse  our  minds  of  a  current 
fallacy :  that  the  Mediaeval  Church,  absorbed  in  piety 
or  speculation  on  the  mysteries  of  the  future  world, 
neglected  or  despised  the  present  order.  It  has  been 
necessary  for  the  historical  philosopher  to  adapt  the 
Middle  Ages  to  a  preconceived  plan.  The  Hellenic  age 
(with  strange  indifference  to  facts)  they  characterised  as 
the  harmonious  involution  of  Nature  and  Spirit,  as  yet 
unaware  of  their  rivalry ;  in  the  Christian  age,  and 
especially  under  the  dominion  of  the  Roman  Church, 
they  are  become  open  enemies,  body  and  soul  set  in 
a  harsh  antithesis;  while  the  modern  age  heralds  or 
consummates  their  reconciliation.  This  'schema'  no 
doubt  enshrines  a  partial  truth,  or  rather  a  small  portion 
of  truth ;  but  as  a  summary  of  the  entire  development 
it  is  wholly  misleading.  We  may  leave  these  idealists 
(who  can  re-write  history  from  their  imagination)  to  settle 
the  question  with  those  who  blame  the  Church  for  an 
excessive  immersion  in  secular  affairs.  It  claimed  a 
universal  tutelage  and  a  too  exclusive  patronage ;  it  is 
blamed  for  materialising  the  spiritual  side  of  religion 
and  condescending  too  readily  to  the  gross  demands  of 
the  ignorant ;  in  the  absence  of  anything  to  correspond 
with  the  modern  State,  it  was  forced  to  assume  the 
control  and  the  initiative  in  nearly  all  matters  uncon- 
nected with  warfare  or  military  defence;  not  civil 
government   alone,  but  art,  jurisprudence,  letters,  and 


THE  SOCIAL  STATE  59 

the  comforts  or  embellishment  of  life,  agriculture  and 
a  pursuit  of  wisdom,  which  recognised  as  yet  no  separa- 
tion of  the  province  of  human  and  Divine,  profane  and 
sacred  lore.  We  are  amazed  at  its  mai*vellous  interest 
and  patience ;  nothing  was  too  trivial  for  its  attention, 
nothing  too  great  for  its  efforts. 

§  4.  The  Middle  Age  is  an  era  where  a  sublime  if 
unattainable  ideal  of  Unity  guides  and  directs,  even 
those  who  in  actual  life  show  least  outward  trace  of 
its  influence.  In  an  age  of  mere  egoism  and  petty  and 
local  strife,  when  force  seemed  alone  to  have  the  last 
word,  it  elevated  a  supreme  power  purely  moral  in  its 
censures,  often  fulminating  from  exile  and  nearly  always 
defenceless ;  in  a  society  often  stigmatised  as  rejoicing 
in  blind  Faith,  it  attempted  to  display  the  complete 
harmony  of  the  dictates  of  Revelation  and  the  require- 
ments of  Reason ;  in  a  political  condition,  often 
censured  as  purely  tyrannical  and  oppressive,  it  firmly 
held  by  the  Democratic  basis  of  all  human  authority, 
and  raised  the  elective  principle  against  the  selfishness 
of  hereditary  right ;  at  a  time  when  the  boundaries  of 
a  parish  or  a  manor  seemed  to  set  the  limit  to  patriotism 
or  sympathy,  it  claimed  to  remind  one  of  the  common 
aim  of  Christendom ;  and  when  we  deplore  the  brutal 
disregard  for  human  life  and  regret  the  ecclesiastical 
indifference  to  serfdom,  we  are  tempted  to  forget  the 
extraordinary  emphasis  on  the  brotherhood,  the  equality 
of  men,  and  the  imperishable  value  of  the  individual. 
Once  more,  among  lawless  nations  and  turbulent  princes, 
commonly  believed  to  conceive  power  as  irresponsible, 
the  greatest  stress  was  laid  upon  the  essentially  popular 
delegation  of  all  ofifice;  no  power  was  above  the  law, 
no  ruler  who  was  not  in  the  last  resort  accountable 
to  his  subjects.  Finally,  in  an  age  when  our  text-books 
assure  us  that  the  interests  of  the  present  were  sacri- 
ficed to  a  constant  pre-occupation  with  the  Eternal,  we 
see  with  astonishment  that  the  Church  is  not  merely 


6o  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

cheerfully  engrossed  in  all  the  multifarious  duties  of 
administration,  but  has  reached  a  complacent  sense  of 
finality,  nay,  of  consummate  perfection,  in  political 
development.  The  Roman  Empire^  a  divinely  con- 
stituted fabric,  with  the  elected  guardians  of  its  twin 
departments  wielding  a  moral  sway  by  no  force  of 
arms,  would  endure  until  the  absent  Ruler  came  at 
the  last  day  to  resume  dominion.  I  do  not  need  to 
remind  you  how  vast  a  chasm  yawned  between 
practice  and  profession,  creed  and  life,  theory  and 
actuality;  but  it  does  not  become  us  in  the  present 
century  to  cast  such  an  accusation  against  earlier  ages. 
"  What,"  asks  Professor  Wallace,  "  was  the  crowning  merit 
of  Catholicism  ?  The  very  thing  which  many  a  modern 
accustomed  to  identify  it  with  the  Inquisition  and  the 
Society  of  Jesus,  or  perhaps  with  a  caricature  even  of 
these,  would  probably  deny  to  it.  That  is,  that  in  a 
rough  and  imperfect  way  the  Church  regarded  it  as  a 
central  and  guiding  principle  of  life,  to  which  indeed 
all  other  things  were  but  ancillary;  but  just  for  that 
reason  conceived  it  as  a  duty  to  give  to  each  of  them 
a  place  and  function  within  itself.  Hence  science,  art, 
social  life,  political  union  grew  up  as  integral  parts 
of  its  structure.  The  unity  perhaps  was  somewhat 
roughly  compacted,  and  it  only  held  out  against 
criticism  so  long  as  progress  was  slow  or  impercept- 
ible. But  still,  as  Dante  shows  us,  the  synthesis  of 
life  was  there.  .  .  .  The  Reformation  comes  to  make 
a  deep  rent  in  the  one  body  of  spiritual  life.  It  breaks 
up  the  unity  of  art,  science,  morality,  and  religion" 
{Gifford  Lectures,  No.  v.  p.  71,  ed.  Caird).  In  this 
extract  we  see  the  reversal  of  the  customary  uncritical 
attitude;  justice  is  done  to  the  secular  mission  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  and  the  separatist  and  disintegrating 
tendency  of  modern  times  is  clearly  shown.  The 
special  sciences,  like  sons  leaving  the  home  at  maturity, 
break  away  from  the  parent,  forget  perhaps  their  deep 


THE  SOCIAL  STATE  6l 

obligation,  and  become  involved  in  fraternal  rivalry  and 
conflict. 

§  5.  In  such  a  system  no  abrupt  dualism  could  set 
Natural  Law  or  physical  forces  over  against  the  Divine 
Will.  Universalism  cannot  find  place  in  its  scheme  for 
any  genuine  barrier  or  restraint  to  the  unique  principle 
of  the  whole.     Spheres  that  seem  independent  or  even  . 

hostile  must  be  reconciled,  co-ordinated,  and,  if  need  t/^ 
be,  compromised.  The  world-conception  founded  on 
Aristotle's  views  was  less  dualist  than  the  author ;  an 
inward  discord  lurking  in  all  earlier  Greek  thought 
disappeared  in  the  genial  warmth  of  the  later  Platonism. 
The  kingdom  of  Grace  was  erected  on  the  basis  of  the 
kingdom  of  Nature,  not  set  in  a  confronting  opposition  ; 
the  partial  expression  of  legislators  or  formulators  of 
customary  procedure  took  place  below,  and  subordinate 
to,  the  eternal  principles  of  righteousness.  These  did 
not  indeed  stand  outside  of  the  Mind  of  the  Heavenly 
Artificer,  as  Plato's  ideas  possessed  a  prior  and  in- 
dependent life  and  authenticity ;  but  they  were  His 
very  Being ;  He  could  not  change  them  without  ceasing 
to  be  Himself;  and  it  marks  a  distinct  step  in  the  path 
of  disruption  when  the  moral  emphasis  of  Thomism 
was  challenged  by  the  prominence  of  arbitrary  power 
in  Scotus.  From  this  moment  the  implication  of 
Natural  Law  tended,  if  I  may  so  use  the  term,  to 
become  demoralised.  In  the  decay  of  the  Church- 
State,  in  the  evident  self-seeking  of  its  princes,  in 
discontent  at  parental  control,  divorced  now  from 
parental  affection,  recourse  was  again  had  to  this 
standard.  In  the  sixteenth  century  thinkers  appealed 
from  a  distorted  Church-State  and  (as  they  believed) 
from  the  interested  impostures  of  priests,  to  a  Nature 
which  alone  could  supply  a  Rational  theology  and 
assert  the  incontestable  rights  of  the  individual.  Nature, 
be  it  noted,  is  still  teleologically  conceived;  it  is  still 
the  work  of  a  wise  and  beneficent  Creator — or  as  somehow 


62     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

in  ttse/f  gracious  and  purposive — and  a  knowledge  of  its 
laws  and  obedience  to  its  precepts  will  assuredly  lead 
each  being  to  perfect  development,  and  so  to  perfect 
happiness.  But  the  tkird  stage  is  not  long  delayed  :  the 
inquiry  whether,  after  all,  we  can  discover  sanction  and 
guarantee  for  individual  rights  in  contemplating  nature ; 
whether,  indeed,  the  only  natural  law  is  not  the  reign 
of  force,  the  survival  of  the  strong ;  and  the  complete 
disappearance  of  moral  ideas  from  Nature  and  from  the 
State.  Closer  scrutiny  of  the  physical  and  social  order 
banished  the  certainty  of  kindly  purpose — above  all, 
that  regard  for  the  individual,  however  humble  or 
obscure — on  which  Christian  doctrine  the  mediaeval 
fabric  had  reposed. 

§  6.  Machiavelli  and  Luther  stand  at  the  opening 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  pioneers  and  creators  of  the 
modern  State.  The  one  represents  the  Realistic,  the 
latter  the  Nominalistic,  spirit  of  the  Middle  Age.  The 
one  is  Scientific,  the  other  Democratic ;  and  the  conflict 
of  the  two  rival  tendencies  is  not  over  to-day — nay,  it 
has  hardly  as  yet  begun  in  earnest.  Machiavelli,  seeing 
in  Nature  no  law  of  right,  only  of  strife  and  competition, 
gives  up  the  individual,  with  his  claims,  vocation,  hopes, 
destiny.  There  is  no  place  for  him  or  his  timid  virtues ; 
only  for  the  State-organism,  whose  ruling  spirit  derides 
the  law  of  righteousness,  and  aims  at  efficiency  alone. 
Luther,  because  he  separates  the  sphere  of  religious  and 
secular  life,  deifies  the  central  authority  and  is  foremost 
among  the  apostles  of  Absolutism  in  the  hope  of  securing 
its  patronage  and  protection  against  the  hierarchical 
claims ;  but  Machiavelli  deprives  this  of  all  moral  aim. 
In  the  development  of  the  conception  of  the  Law  of 
Nature,  we  have  seen  it  at  first  identical  with  the  will 
of  God  ;  next,  appealed  to  as  a  higher  and  more  sacred 
authority  than  partial  or  local  enactment,  than  the 
interested  code  of  statesmen  or  the  interested  theology 
of  divines ;  lastly,  losing  all  ethical  force  and  all  relation 


THE  SOCIAL  STATE  63 

to  what  men  call  good  or  bad,  claiming  absolute  inde- 
pendence and  commending  in  the  Body  Politic  sub- 
missive obedience  to  the  biological  rule,  survival  at 
all  cost.  Here  is  disregard  for  the  average  man ;  there 
is  no  value  but  in  efficiency,  which  overrides  moral 
scruples  in  the  interest  of  the  whole.  The  individual 
is  denied  all  ethical  significance  both  in  the  refined 
Idealism^  which  respects  only  the  general  faculty  of 
reason  in  each  man,  and  not  his  special  character  or 
his  peculiar  endowment ;  in  the  political  theory  of  re- 
action, which  mocks  our  intrusting  the  weighty  intricacies 
of  government  to  the  unlettered,  presumes  the  abdication 
of  the  people,  and  'enthrones  in  the  vacant  seat'  the 
expert  and  the  bureaucrat ;  in  the  pure  biological 
concept,  which  (unlike  the  gnosticism  of  Mill  and 
Huxley)  sees  in  the  State-end  not  the  reversal  of 
blind  natural  struggle,  but  merely  its  continuation  on 
a  plane  of  greater  intensity.  It  is  idle  in  such  con- 
nection to  speak  of  the  rights  of  individuals  ;  none  can 
exist  save  such  as  are  sanctioned  and  created  by  the 
central  power,  and  revocable  at  will  by  the  same ;  law 
is  no  declaration  or  unfolding  of  eternal  truths,  it  is 
the  command  of  the  stronger,  bent  only  on  the  single 
duty  of  self-preservation.  The  negligible  and  uncon- 
sidered units  which  compose  this  Leviathan  rise  some- 
how in  a  purposeless  universe  into  such  a  condition  of 
thraldom  for  an  unknown  end  ;  yet  no  theory  of  the 
State,  however  high-sounding,  can  be  founded  elsewhere 
than  on  the  mediaeval  belief  in  the  ethical  significance, 
the  imperishable  value,  of  the  individual. 

§  7.  It  is  the  fashion  among  political  theorists  and 
men  of  science  to  throw  a  veil  of  sentiment  around  the 
naked  and  unabashed  experience  of  natural  and  social 
life.  The  world-spirit,  known  to  us  as  a  blind  and 
irresistible  force,  without  purpose  or  meaning,  is  set  up 
as  a  fit  object  of  worship,  as  a  substitute  for  the  personal 
God  who  moves  in  history  and  judges  human  conduct. 


64     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

The  State,  losing  something  of  the  fascination  of  a  chival- 
rous embodiment  in  an  individual,  nevertheless  still 
claims  the  old  devotion ;  but  at  the  same  time  we  are 
secretly  assured  that  it  is  a  mere  human  and  temporary 
expedient,  founded  not  on  indefeasible  right,  but  on  a 
precarious  contract,  which  in  the  interests  of  order  must 
be  treated  as  irrevocable,  while  in  truth  it  is  nothing 
of  the  sort.  We  are  concerned  now  only  with  this 
latter.  Machiavelli  and  his  followers  tore  away  the 
disguise  of  an  Idealism  which  had  worn  very  thin. 
"  God  has  given  us  the  Papacy ;  let  us  enjoy  it,"  was 
the  maxim  of  a  Pope  on  the  eve  of  the  Reformation. 
It  was  not  by  such  sensuous  and  immediate  gratification 
of  artistic  appetite  that  the  pontiffs  of  the  Middle  Age 
subdued  the  world,  as  they  wandered  in  exile,  yet 
abating  nothing  of  their  Divine  claims.  The  cynical 
tolerance  of  the  half-sceptical  Curia  is  a  poor  exchange 
for  the  convinced  fervour  of  Torquemada  the  persecutor, 
praying  in  vain  to  be  released  from  the  stern  mission 
which  he  believed  had  been  imposed  on  him.  Control 
in  the  political  or  religious  world  is  seldom  wrested 
from  the  strenuous  oppressor,  but  from  the  cynical,  the 
irresolute,  the  weakly  well-intentioned  and  diffident; 
not  from  the  unswerving  foe  of  the  cause  of  reform,  but 
from  the  ruler  who  is  more  than  half  convinced  of  its 
need  and  justice.  The  cause  of  successful  revolution  is 
always  won  first  among  the  supposed  champions  of  the 
existing  order.  In  the  first  quarter  of  the  sixteenth 
century  the  theory  of  the  State  was  violently  separated 
from  those  invisible  sanctions  on  which  it  had  hitherto 
reposed.  Idealism  disappeared.  The  plain  bare  fact 
was  recognised  that  the  Body  Politic  does  not  exist 
to  enable  men  to  prepare  for  an  eternity  which  may 
never  come ;  that  as  an  organism  it  has  the  sole  aim 
of  maintaining  its  own  existence  by  efficiency  in  suo 
esse  perseverare.  The  precepts  of  the  Gospel  were 
seen  to  be  inapplicable   to   the  new  public  life;   the 


THE  SOCIAL  STATE  65 

duties  and  interests  of  the  Christian  and  the  citizen 
(or  perhaps  the  statesman)  were  set  apart  in  different 
spheres.  The  Church,  indeed,  might  still  be  conceived, 
perhaps,  in  the  strictest  subordination,  as  a  useful  hand- 
maid of  the  State,  to  teach  the  poor  compliance  and 
resignation,  to  assure  the  afflicted  or  the  dangerously- 
despairing  of  a  certain  recompense  in  another  world; 
a  *  ruler's  lie,'  which  marks  that  development  most 
untrue  to  the  Christian  as  to  the  democratic  spirit — 
the  division  and  antithesis  of  a  religion  for  the  ignorant 
and  a  religion  for  the  enlightened,  an  esoteric  philosophy 
set  above  an  exoteric  cult,  still  depending  on  formula, 
still  enforced  by  authority. 

§  8.  It  was  this  divorce  of  enlightenment  and  primi- 
tive human  nature  that  resulted  in  the  catastrophe  of 
the  French  Revolution.  Until  the  first  rude  outburst 
of  the  popular  passion,  statesmen  and  philosophers  had 
acquiesced  in  this  disingenuous  compromise.  If,  dis- 
counting some  generous  commonplace,  we  examine 
closely  the  fundamental  ideas  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
we  are  either  distressed  at  their  little  sympathy  with 
the  mass  of  mankind,  or  amazed  at  their  ignorance  of 
the  human  heart.  Up  to  the  very  moment  when 
aristocrat  and  philosopher,  in  spite  of  their  Liberalism, 
were  involved  in  a  common  doom,  or  at  least  a  common 
exile,  the  old  fallacy  of  an  enlightened  despotism 
seemed  to  be  the  ideal  of  government.  It  is  substan- 
tially true  that  the  champions  of  the  Revolution,  for 
all  their  lofty  maxims  of  human  equality  ("popular 
control,  inalienable  right  of  individual  to  freedom 
and  to  happiness  "),  had  no  thought  of  any  direct  con- 
sultation of  the  people.  Fancying  that  they  were 
reviving  the  classical  State,  and  contemptuous  of  the 
intervening  ages  and  ideals,  they  forgot  that  they 
were  still  the  children  of  their  time,  with  a  heavy 
weight  of  Christian  tradition  and  prejudice,  which 
they  tried  to  adapt  to  the  antique  conceptions.  They 
5 


66  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

repeated  without  serious  conviction  the  well-known 
maxims  of  Marsilius  of  Padua,  and  those  ultra-demo- 
cratic truisms  which  passed  current  {but  perhaps  ineffect- 
ive) from  the  thirteenth  to  the  fifteenth  century,  and 
were  absorbed  or  obliterated  in  the  centralisation  of  the 
monarchic  State,  when  in  his  own  interest  the  individual 
was  abased,  all  intermediate  groups  suppressed  between 
ruler  and  subject.  But  their  aim  was  (to  the  last  rude 
shock  of  disillusionment)  a  purely  intellectual  enlighten- 
ment ;  the  substitution  of  middle-class  culture  for  aristo- 
cratic privilege ;  the  capture,  rather  than  the  overthrow 
or  the  reform,  of  autocracy.  The  individual  citizen  was 
still  to  be  an  automaton,  moving,  under  the  patronage 
and  guidance  of  experts,  on  the  path  to  a  perfection 
now  purely  secular ;  a  fuller  emancipation  from  tutelage 
was  to  them  inconceivable.  They  retained,  amid  some 
mediaeval  phrases,  the  anti-popular  features  of  the 
ancient  State.  One  exclusive  caste  or  bureaucracy  was 
to  be  supplanted  by  another.  There  was  to  be  no 
change  in  the  absolute  prerogative  of  the  central 
authority ;  they  refused  to  abate  one  iota  of  its  preten- 
sions. The  popular  will,  supposed  to  correspond  with 
the  tenets  of  its  self-elected  spokesmen,  replaced  the 
Royal  will:  no  effort  was  made  to  understand  it. 
Reform,  enlightenment,  control,  was  still  to  be  the 
privilege  of  the  elect.  The  common  man  must  thank- 
fully welcome  the  *  Age  of  Reason,'  but  was  not 
expected  to  further  it,  or  to  interfere  in  its  triumphant 
advance.  From  such  dreams  there  was  a  rude 
awakening. 

§  9.  We  have  now  reached  the  natural  time-limit 
which  we  have  set  to  our  survey  of  Western  progress 
and  thought,  in  these  first  four  lectures ;  and  it  remains 
to  sum  up  the  general  issue  of  our  present  discourse. 
"  In  sharp  contrast,"  says  Gierke,  "  to  the  theory  of 
antiquity,  runs  through  the  Middle  Age  the  thought 
of  the  absolute  and  undying  value  of  the  individual, 


THE  SOCIAL  STATE  6j 

revealed  by  Christianity  and  grasped  in  all  its  depth 
by  the  Teutonic  spirit.  Every  individual,  in  virtue 
of  his  eternal  destination,  is  at  core  something  holy 
and  indestructible.  The  smallest  fraction  of  the 
whole  has  its  own  intrinsic  worth,  not  merely  because 
it  is  a  part  of  the  whole.  Every  man  is  to  be 
regarded  by  the  community  as  an  end  in  himself, 
never  as  a  mere  instrument."  The  mediaeval  period 
derives  all  its  splendour  of  achieving  the  ideal,  all 
its  undaunted  courage  in  the  face  of  disappoint- 
ment, all  its  consideration  for  the  weaker,  its  artistic 
culture  (which  embellished  this  life,  just  because  it 
pointed  beyond  it),  its  moral  restraint  on  irresponsible 
power, — from  an  abiding  sense  of  the  nearness,  of 
the  reality  of  spiritual  things.  Differing  widely  with 
each  temperament,  sometimes  grossly  materialised  past 
recognition,  the  notion  of  heaven  as  the  ultimate 
recompense  or  the  true  form  of  human  life,  pene- 
trates into  every  relation.  While  in  a  very  few  this 
happy  contemplation  might  lead  to  a  surrender  of 
earthly  duties,  the  loss  to  society  was  but  infinitesimal 
beside  the  value  of  the  restriction  it  placed  on  savage 
instincts,  the  stimulus  and  gladness  it  gave  to  moral 
endeavour. 

§  10.  But  political  and  ethical  theories  sought  an 
independent  basis;  and  men  advanced  from  an  ill- 
defined  or  indefinable  Law  of  Nature  to  the  assertion 
of  the  two  rival  dogmas,  the  Sovereignty  of  the  State 
and  the  Sovereignty  of  the  Individual.  The  eighteenth 
century  contains  in  the  utmost  confusion  dull  murmurs 
of  protest,  cultured  criticism,  generous  theory.  Not 
even  Rousseau  himself  is  consistent  in  explaining  the 
relation  of  the  two  sovereignties.  The  real  and  often 
subconscious  forces,  working  underground  towards  the 
great  catastrophe,  were  just  the  primitive  instincts  of 
man,  who  refuses  to  be  sacrificed  to  an  unknown  cause, 
whether  it  be  the  intrigues  of  a  court,  the  needs  of  a 


6S  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

dynasty,  the  mere  survival  of  a  community.  And  the 
divorce  of  secular  concerns  from  ethical  and  religious 
prepossessions  had  resulted  in  a  contempt  for  the  indi- 
vidual and  a  regard  for  the  type  which  is  characteristic 
of  the  scientific  spirit.  The  Revolution  might  perhaps 
sweep  away  the  relics  of  obsolete  privilege  and  a  hope- 
less administrative  incoherence,  and  it  might  tighten 
the  bonds  of  the  central  control ;  but  the  real  aim  of 
social  life  and  law:  to  treat  every  man  as  an  end-in- 
himself,  and  to  welcome  his  voluntary  sacrifice  but  never 
to  compel  it — such  conception  of  man's  freedom,  value, 
and  dignity  was  rather  obscured  than  placed  in  any 
clearer  relief.  Indeed,  in  actual  fact  the  very  simplest 
axioms  of  individual  right  had  to  be  reconquered. 
Force,  efficiency,  self-assertion  once  more  usurped  the 
place  of  moral  ideas.  From  another  quarter  came  the 
much-needed  assistance.  Not  in  the  confused  theories 
of  politicians,  trying  to  compromise  the  rival  sovereignty 
of  State  and  Individual ;  not  in  the  mere  rudimentary 
passions  of  hunger,  greed,  and  savage  envy,  in  which 
the  Revolution  burnt  out;  but  in  the  lecture-room  at 
Konigsberg,  was  the  old  truth  rediscovered — that  the 
differentia  of  man  is  not  intelligence  but  morality^  and 
that  the  true  Christian  and  democratic  spirit  will  appeal 
not  to  the  exceptional  faculty  of  reason  and  enlighten- 
ment, but  to  the  universal  sense  of  duty  and  willing 
service  in  the  cause  of  the  Right.  For  the  equality  of 
man  (like  the  purposiveness  of  the  Universe)  can  never 
become  ascertained  fact,  it  will  always  be  an  article 
of  pious  belief ;  and  in  so  far  as  it  is  this,  it  will  supply 
the  motive  for  our  venture,  and,  however  slenderly 
supported  by  experience,  the  guarantee  of  our  ultimate 
success.  It  is  to  this  new  emphasis  on  the  old  truth, 
long  buried  under  the  actual  worship  of  force,  that  we 
must  direct  attention,  in  endeavouring  to  give  some 
account  of  the  century  which  has  just  elapsed. 


LECTURE   V 

THE  MODERN  AGE  AS  PENSIONER  OF  THE 

PAST 

"  Surely  thou  art  one  of  them  :  for  thou  art  a  Galilean,  and  thy  speech 
agreeth  thereto." — Mark  xiv.  70. 

"  The  just  shall  live  by  faith."— Rom.  i.  17. 

§  I.  Simple  experiences  and  impulses  of  average  man  not  to  be 
lost  sight  of  in  tracing  political  generalities  :  universal  application 
of  the  Gospel  message  :  whole  scheme  of  Western  life  bound  up 
with  certain  prepossessions  or  matters  of  faith  :  their  serious  peril 
at  the  present  time  :  unreflecting  morality  not  so  much  in  danger  : 
emotional  basis  of  morality  more  secure  than  any  theoretic  basis. 

§  2.  Steady  debasement  of  the  moral  sentiments,  origin  and 
sanction,  during  the  past  century :  the  three  great  '  unities,' 
Nature,  State,  God,  divested  of  all  'moral'  implication  :  the  Divine 
relieved  of  its  few  remaining  human  attributes :  a  substitute  for 
*  God '  proposed  which  cannot  be  an  object  of  worship. 

§  3.  We  cannot  afford  to  eliminate  the  one  quality  (*  goodness ') 
which  makes  conception  of  God  at  all  intelligible  :  not  as  a  vague 
stream  or  tendency  :  the  minimum  of  religious  belief — a  righteous 
and  conscious  power  giving  to  each  his  due,  and  maintaining  the 
conflict  as  a  real  issue,  not  an  unmeaning  gladiatorial  show. 

§  4.  Objection — "  impertinent  to  revive  such  blind  faith  "  :  faith 
(in  our  discussion)  is  rather  loyal  self-surrender  to  a  cause  not  yet 
won  :  a  belief  or  sympathy  powerful  enough  to  stimulate  action  : 
the  true  '  Age  of  Faith '  the  present  day :  immediacy  of  Church 
authority  and  cool  rationalism  of  Middle  Ages. 

§  5.  Difficult  to  rise  to  any  confident  moral  autonomy  :  most 
men  are  content  (with  Hegel)  to  acquiesce  in  the  general  moral 
sense  of  community :  any  advance  beyond  conventional  custom 
and  usefulness  is  a  venture  of  faith,  on  very  slender  evidence  :  moral 
conduct  as  defiance  of  natural  law  :  in  the  positive  content  of  the 
moral  Law  we  are  mere  pensioners  of  the  past. 

§  6.  Every  act  which  is  something  more  than  conformity  to 
traditional    observance    or    obvious    calculation    of   gain    bears 

69 


70     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

witness  to  conviction  of  purpose  in  the  world :  this  obstinately 
impenetrable  to  reflection  :  phrases  only  conceal  our  profound 
ignorance  :  is  the  wager  '  unreasonable '  ? 

§  7.  Complete  instability  of  all  moral  notions  beyond  the  decep- 
tive routine  of  society  :  delusive  promises  of  race  perfectibility  : 
abandonment  of  individual  (as  worth  and  character)  to  cosmic 
process  :  tyranny  of  abstractions  which  are  mere  human  prejudices 
and  have  no  counterpart  outside  his  servile  brain  (Stimer). 

§  8.  The  practical  life  with  its  business  sympathies  and  enthusiasm 
unaffected  by  the  hopeless  outlook  of  speculation  (but  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  the  ensuing  torpor  may  not  spread  from  the  educated  to 
the  ignorant  classes  :  present  system  of  morals  in  that  case  doomed). 

§  9.  This  overriding  of  strict  logic  in  the  world  of  practice  and 
common  sense,  characteristic  feature  of  English  thought  and 
statecraft :  we  find  it  hard  to  justify  our  interest  and  our  work, 
just  as  reflection  makes  us  blush  at  our  charity :  tearing  away 
of  many  sentimental  veils  and  disguises  to-day  which  screened 
primitive  impulse. 

§  ID.  Two  extremes,  cynical  greed  and  idealist  surrender : 
between  these,  indispensable  factor  in  life,  the  social  and  personal 
influence  of  the  Church  :  provides  not  an  answer  to  curiosity  but 
an  adequate  stimulus  to  action  and  endeavour  :  dualistic  tendency 
to  separate  the  domains  of  certainty  and  of  hope. 

§  II.  Sense  of  personal  value,  agency,  and  worth  still  subsists. 

§  12.  The  incentive  to-day  is  still,  as  ever,  voluntary  service 
in  what  is  conceived  as  the  Highest  Cause :  the  selfish  man 
unnatural  except  as  product  of  reflection  :  amid  wreck  of  ideals  we 
still  pay  an  instinctive  homage  to  a  certain  type  of  life  :  we  refuse 
to  obey  unless  we  can  love  and  understand  :  this  understanding 
largely  a  venture  of  faith. 

§  I.  In  the  last  four  lectures  we  have  surveyed 
man  under  certain  relations,  following  for  the  most 
part  the  historic  method,  but  never  losing  sight,  I 
hope,  of  the  simple  experiences,  the  primitive  impulses 
of  the  average  consciousness,  which  lie  behind  the 
generalities  of  a  wider  treatment  and  endorse  or  correct 
them.  We  have  assumed  beforehand  that  the  Gospel 
message  must  be  of  universal  application;  it  cannot 
afford,  like  some  phases  of  philosophy,  to  retreat 
into  a  fastness,  inaccessible  to  ordinary  man.  As 
the    eighteenth    century    examined    the    credibility    a 


THE  MODERN  AGE  71 

priori  of  the  Christian  Revelation,  the  nineteenth, 
the  actual  authenticity  of  its  historical  record,  so 
from  another  and  a  humbler  side  of  apologetic, 
we  are  trying  to  ascertain  the  value  of  the  Christian 
teaching  for  human  life.  In  the  third  lecture 
we  descried  the  purport  or  the  central  point  of  our 
lectures  in  this:  that  the  scheme  of  Western  society 
and  its  ideals  was  indissolubly  bound  up  with  certain 
beliefs,  prejudices,  and  prepossessions  which,  whether 
openly  acknowledged  or  as  openly  rejected  in  theory, 
inspired  as  a  fact  the  general  thought  and  temper,  and  to 
some  extent  modified  the  individual  behaviour  of  men. 
Now  we  have  often  intimated  that  these  were  now 
exposed  to  serious  peril,  and  must  be  very  deep-rooted 
in  our  reflecting  nature  if  they  are  destined  eventually 
to  survive.  Doubt  besets  not  only  strict  theological 
certainty,  but  is  equally  active  in  a  more  secret  polemic 
against  moral  conduct,  the  worth  of  endeavour,  the 
significance  of  the  world's  life  or  our  own,  the  value 
of  ideals  which  hopefully  promise  a  better  stage  for 
individual  or  for  race.  It  is  not  necessary  to  predict  a 
sudden  catastrophe  in  any  European  country  in  this 
divorce  of  habit  and  practice  from  a  theoretic  basis 
which  is  so  signal  a  feature  of  modern  life.  The 
essential  characteristic  of  morality,  the  'sympathetic 
resentment '  which  demands  impersonally  punishment  of 
wrong  and  returns  kindliness  to  the  good,  the  alternate 
stimulus  and  restraint,  the  one  of  the  visible  beauty  of 
heroism  and  self-control,  the  other,  the  sad  experience 
when  on  looking  within  we  find  how  reluctantly 
we  obey  our  own  rule  —  these  have  preceded  re- 
flection and  can  survive  it,  especially  among  those 
classes  who  are  creatures  of  custom  and  move  only 
within  a  carefully  prescribed  area  of  routine.  But  is 
it  a  matter  of  indifference  if  the  behaviour  of  reflecting 
men  becomes  (after  all  the  toilsome  effort  to  reach 
autonomy^  as   the   willing  recognition   of  law)  a  mere 


72     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

following  of  habit,  unconvinced  and  hardly  self- 
conscious?  Is  the  State  to  end  as  it  began,  in  un- 
reflecting deference  to  tribal  custom  ?  Can  we  realise 
what  our  society  would  be  like,  if,  in  a  vague  sense  of 
danger  and  an  illogical  care  for  public  welfare,  we  were 
forced  to  suppress  the  anti-moral  tendencies  of  free- 
thought,  as  the  persecuting  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages 
faced  the  duty  of  crushing  heterodox  independence.  In 
its  strict  sense,  and  sundered  from  its  present  sanctions 
and  implications,  the  moral  life  has  become  an  act  of 
Faith  demanding  a  humbler  prostration  of  pure  intelli- 
gence than  any  subscription  to  a  Creed. 

§  2.  The  steady  and  continuous  tendency  of  the 
nineteenth  century  has  been  to  suggest  the  lowly  origin, 
the  precarious  sanction,  the  mere  temporary  usefulness, 
of  the  Moral  Sentiment.  The  great  unities  with  which 
each  man  must  have  relations — the  State,  Nature,  the 
Divine  Being — have  been  severed  from  all  moral  conno- 
tation :  in  the  firsts  an  outward  order  bent  on  its  own 
preservation ;  in  the  second^  a  never-failing  source  of 
varied  life  and  energy;  in  the  thirds  a  comprehensive 
reason  or  universal  consciousness,  which  enfolds  the 
manifold  both  of  appearance  and  of  thought.  Compared 
with  such  majestic  universals,  the  term  'good'  dwindles 
and  disappears.  How  easily  we  detect  the/a/se  note  when 
from  clear  facts  of  experience  authors  (whose  interests 
are  somehow  still  human)  pass  without  warning  into 
the  realm  of  moral  appeal,  and  employ  the  language 
of  conscience,  of  emotion,  and  of  virtue,  heavily  weighted 
as  each  term  is  with  hypothesis  and  conjecture.  "  We 
dare  not  say  'God  is  good,'"  writes  {Gifford  Lectures^ 
viii.  128,  Caird)  a  late  distinguished  Oxford  Professor, 
"  because  so  to  call  Him  seems  to  bring  Him  down  to 
the  level  of  such  an  one  as  mortals  are,  and  to  offer  a 
cheap  commendation  of  Him  whose  ways  are  not  as  our 
ways,  nor  His  thoughts  as  our  thoughts."  This  negative 
and  apophatic  theology  is  a  mark  of  reverent  modesty  in 


THE  MODERN  AGE  73 

such  a  writer,  as  it  was  in  the  many  followers  of  the 
pseudo-Dionysius  and  in  Nicolas  of  Cusa,  in  whom 
meet  and  struggle  the  old  spirit  and  the  new ;  but  it 
might  seem  hazardous,  in  the  genuine  fear  of  materialis- 
ing our  concept  of  God,  to  reject  the  sole  category  by 
which  He  can  become  an  object  of  worship  to  ordinary 
men.  We  have  already  seen,  and  I  hope  shall  still  stoutly 
maintain,  that  the  religious  sentiment  rises  from  a  felt 
personal  need  of  assistance,  from  a  sense  of  creaturehood, 
dependence,  and  estrangement,  which  is  yet  curiously 
allied  with  a  hope  of  access,  intercourse,  and  partnership 
in  a  great  scheme,  where  man  co-operates  with  God,  and 
the  test  is  experience  that  God  is  good.  Absolute  power, 
absolute  wisdom,  as  such,  can  never  call  forth  man's 
more  strenuous  and  active  homage ;  we  acquiesce,  we 
discount,  and  at  once  pass  on  from  such  sublime 
unities  to  the  manifold  world  of  experience,  where  lie, 
confused  yet  enticing,  our  life's  true  interests.  Neither 
the  blind  force,  the  '  Unknowable '  which  lies  at  the 
back  of  phenomena,  nor  the  Universal  Consciousness, 
which  blends  in  one  focus  the  several  centres  of  will  and 
intelligence,  can,  with  any  due  respect  to  the  use  of 
terms,  be  worshipped. 

§  3.  The  former  we  confront  and  defy,  deriving  from 
some  mysterious  gnostic  'pleroma'  that  power  which 
enables  us  to  criticise,  to  baffle,  and  to  reverse  the 
Cosmic  process  with  an  influence  that  yet  arises  from 
it ;  the  latter  is  in  the  last  resort  so  intimately  ourselves 
(nearer  than  breathing)  that  it  is  strictly  untrue  to  call 
it  object  at  all.  Nor  do  these  categories  of  force  or 
reason  exhaust  the  definition  of  man.  Man's  differ- 
entia, let  it  always  be  remembered,  is  Sociability 
(Wallace,  Gifford  Lectures,  viii.  p.  129),  not  merely 
his  capacity  for  living  with  his  fellows  and  thus 
developing  his  highest  powers,  but  in  the  further 
and  emphatic  sense  that  he  is  absolutely  inconceivable 
as  man  apart  from  society.     Man's   continual  effort  is 


74     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

"  to  be  not  only  himself  but  more  than  himself."  Now, 
as  the  universal  faculty  (to  which  a  so-called  democratic 
age  ought  to  appeal)  is  an  appreciation  of  goodness,  and 
in  the  very  lowest  a  dim  yearning  for  better  things, 
however  obscure  and  faintly  outlined  be  the  ideal,  so 
in  our  qualifying  of  the  Eternal  behind  the  changing 
manifold,  we  cannot  afford  to  eliminate  the  single  predi- 
cate that  all  can  understand,  because  all  need.  If  we  may 
not  interpret  God  by  what  is  somehow  felt  to  be  highest 
in  us,  existing  in  all  though  but  potentially  and  weakly, 
we  relegate  ourselves  and  the  course  of  things  to  that 
which  in  its  nature  is  and  must  remain  unknown.  And 
the  good  (as  we  have  seen  so  often)  must  be  no  impersonal 
Benevolence,  as  with  Plato,  no  mere  stream  or  tendency 
making  for  Righteousness,  as  in  the  vague  sentiment 
that  for  a  brief  moment  seemed  to  supplant  the  ortho- 
dox view,  but  a  conscious  goodness  not  divorced  from 
justice,  which  condescends  to  care  for  the  humblest,  and 
gives  to  each  his  due.  "  We  dare  not  presume,"  so 
speaks  Herman  Lotze,  writing  of  human  destiny 
{MicrocosmuSy  Bk.  iii.  chap.  5),  "  to  judge  which  mental 
development  wins  a  claim  to  immortality  through  the 
eternal  significance  it  has  acquired,  and  to  which  this 
has  to  be  denied.  Nor  again  must  we  seek  to  determine 
whether  all  animal  souls  are  mortal,  all  human  souls 
immortal ;  but  take  refuge  in  the  belief  that  to  each 
being  right  will  be  done." 

§  4.  I  fear  that  at  this  point  I  shall  exhaust  the 
patience  of  some  of  my  hearers.  "  This  pretended  apo- 
logy or  eirenicon,"  it  will  be  said,  "  amounts  to  nothing 
short  of  a  demand  for  blind  belief,  for  a  summons  to 
unreasoning  faith.  Joseph  le  Maistre  fancied  he  saw  an 
opportune  moment  for  pressing  the  papal  supremacy,  in 
the  wreck  of  ideals,  the  uncertainty  of  aims  during  the 
Napoleonic  age.  And  to-day,  in  spite  of  the  progress  in 
certain  science,  in  our  knowledge  of  man,  his  origins  and 
his  constitution,  it  is  surely  too  late  and  too  impertinent 


THE  MODERN  AGE  75 

to  recall  us  to  the  submissiveness  of  the  ages  of  Faith^ 
which  is  only  another  term  for  priest-ridden  weakness. 
For  all   faith  implies   authority."     It  is  time,  indeed, 
whether  or  not  it  lie  in  the  strict  course  of  the  argument, 
to  answer  this   objection.     The   age-long  antithesis  of 
Faith  and  Reason  has  not  lost  its  fascination  for  modern 
eyes  and  ears ;  and  in  the  absence  of  any  strict  defini- 
tion it  must  always  attract  debate,  voluble  and  incon- 
clusive, and   in   some   slightly  varying   form    reappear 
again  and  again.     But  if  the  results  of  our  inquiries  into 
the  religious  or  the  moral  sentiment  have  been  accepted, 
it  will  not  be  difficult  to  vindicate  and   to  justify  the 
important  place  of  Faith,  conceived  as  loyal  self-surrender 
to  a  cause  not  yet  won.     And  must  we  not  begin  with 
a  gentle  rebuke  of  a  current  fallacy,  about  what  are 
known  as  the  ages  of  faith  ?     Would  it  not  be  truer  to 
say  that   our  own  time   has   a   far  better  title  to  the 
name?     We   may   be   reluctant    to    confess   this,    but 
prejudice  ought  not  to  hinder  our  analysis.     Under  the 
Mediaeval    Church,  the    carefully   planned    system    of 
morals,  the  spiritual  director  to  adapt  them,  the  censure, 
the  absolution,  the  penalty  to  enforce,  the  tangible  comfort 
of  sacrament,  the  visible   assurance  of  a  new  Birth — 
how  near,  how  immediate,  how  concrete  was  this  solace, 
this  restraint !     The  Church  was  not  merely  armed  with 
powers  over  the  world  to  come,  but,  owing  to  causes 
we  have  examined,  possessed  an  effective  control  over 
society  in   this.     It  was   by  no  mere  spiritual  menace 
that  an  Excommunication  or  an  Interdict  drove  terror 
home  into  the  hearts  of  the  most  indifferent :  the  one 
implied  a  dislocation  of  human  intercourse,  a  paralysis 
of  the  simplest  social  co-operation ;  the  other  an  out- 
lawry from  the  one  ark  of  salvation,  a  doom  not  deferred 
but  instantaneous.    To  the  vast  majority  the  Church  had 
no  need  to  explain,  to  justify  by  argument  the  *  credenda,' 
which  could  at  once  be  translated   into  such  efficacy; 
every   day  and   hour  she  justified   her  claim   not  by 


76  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

words  but  by  deeds ;  by  being,  not  hy preaching.  And  to 
those  who  had  leisure  and  ability  to  seek  deeper  into 
the  truths  of  Revelation  ?  Was  there  ever  a  moment's 
pause  in  the  long  and  tireless  endeavour  to  accommodate 
and  to  conform  the  articles  of  Faith  to  the  demands  of 
Reason,  limited  indeed,  but  always  alert  and  but  seldom 
cajoled  into  deferential  surrender  ?  Did  Faith  (say,  in 
St.  Anselm)  ever  mean  a  whole-hearted  submission  to 
Divine  Will,  and  not  rather  acceptance  of  certain  truths 
on  authority,  which  the  enlightened  reason  could  after- 
wards declare  to  be  in  entire  correspondence  with  its 
own  principles  ?  Have  we  forgotten  that  Lessing,  in  his 
Education  of  the  Human  Race,  and  not  Hegel,  is  strictly 
the  last  of  mediaeval  Rationalists,  and  exactly  reproduces 
their  spirit  ? 

§  5.  The  analogy  to-day  with  the  first  stage  of  belief 
would  be  a  contented  acquiescence  in  current  social 
observance  and  restraint,  for  convenience  and  use, 
and  without  theory  or  conviction  ;  that  deference  to 
a  respectable  and  moderate  standard,  which  has  been 
perhaps  sufficiently  attacked  by  modern  preachers 
and  moralists.  Yet  this  has  to  suffice  for  most  men, 
because  it  is  the  only  security  that  is  left — the  'civil 
spirit,'  the  'reason'  of  the  community,  above  which, 
though  we  feel  its  level  is  low,  we  have  not  strength 
or  energy  to  rise.  The  transition  from  a  comfortable 
and  perhaps  parasitic  heteronomy  to  complete  inde- 
pendence and  spontaneous  aim  has  become  increasingly 
difficult.  In  this  gross  form  of  faith,  as  mere  unquestion- 
ing submission  to  authority  and  police,  many  end  as 
they  began  their  days.  The  generous  idealism  of 
the  earlier  Liberal  movement  has  long  since  given 
way  to  a  distrust  or  contempt  of  the  feeble  individual, 
and  a  further  lease  to  the  very  State -autocracy 
against  which  it  protested  so  nobly  and  yet  spent 
itself  in  vain.  Wherever,  here  and  there,  a  man  rises 
to  a  higher  sense  of  duty,  of  mission,  of  vocation,  than 


THE  MODERN  AGE  jj 

he  can  find  prescribed  by  a  social  code  which  enforces 
only  above  the  minimum,  there  we  see,  in  the  strictest 
and  highest  sense,  the  reign  of  Faith  over  a  human  soul, 
never  so  conspicuous  or  so  honourable  as  in  those  who 
in  another  sense  have  '  lost  belief/  If  we  issue  forth  as 
knight-errants,  single  and  alone,  from  police  and  routine, 
from  the  commonplaces  of  sentiment  which  disguise 
our  primitive  utilitarian  impulses,  we  enter  the  realm 
of  Faith,  which  somehow  indefinitely  enlarges  to  admit 
all  the  weightiest  concerns  of  life.  In  mediaeval  theology, 
disintegration  sets  in  when,  one  by  one,  the  articles 
of  dogma  were  withdrawn  by  piety  or  by  doubt  from 
the  sphere  of  criticism  and  rational  inquiry  to  that 
of  faith  in  a  Divine  Revelation.  And  to-day,  amid  the 
increasing  fixity  of  Natural  Law,  has  not  every  moral 
prepossession  been  submitted  to  a  scrutiny  so  rigorous 
that  one  who  still  maintains  a  canon,  unsupported 
by  nature  or  by  reflection,  is  in  this  highest  sense  a 
believer?  The  moral  life  is  a  venture,  a  hazardous 
wager,  which  rejects  and  defies  evidence.  We  are  the 
precarious  pensioners  of  the  past;  we  have  invented 
nothing  new;  and  the  claim  to  find  an  independent 
basis  for  statecraft  and  for  conduct  has  failed.  Our 
aim  is  to  show  that  the  peculiar  system  of  Western 
society  depends  on  a  doctrinal  basis  which  is  both 
necessary  for  its  continuance  and  incapable  of  strict 
demonstration.  And  an  unprejudiced  observer  will 
easily  see  that  the  term  doctrinal  includes  not  merely 
religious  *  credenda,'  but  the  simplest  and  most 
fundamental  moral  axioms. 

§  6.  Let  us  place  ourselves  for  a  moment  in  the 
position  of  one  who  really  confronts  the  facts  of  life, 
who  refuses  to  shut  his  eyes  either  to  the  consistency 
of  theory  or  the  requirements  of  practice ;  how  would 
he  summarise,  if  he  were  quite  candid  with  himself, 
the  results  of  a  century  of  political  unrest  and  scientific 
discovery  ?    And  in  doing  this,  let  me  not  be  suspected 


yS  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

either  of  pessimism  or  of  a  triumphant  delight  that 
the  fate  of  established  theological  dogma  has  befallen 
also  its  once  successful  rival.  There  is  no  need  for 
despondency  because  there  is  so  much  to  be  done, 
so  little  of  value  really  attained.  Surely  it  will  not 
be  without  significance  if  we  discover  that  the  com- 
monest moral  action  makes  as  tremendous  demands 
upon  the  justice  and  the  goodness  of  the  Power  that 
controls  the  world,  as  the  Christian  faith  itself?  It  is 
high  time  that  this  identity  of  interest  and  of  use  were 
recognised.  Every  act  that  is  something  more  than 
mere  useful  conformity  to  custom  bears  witness  to  the 
undying  and  inextinguishable  assurance  of  purpose  in 
the  world — which  for  some  Divine  reason  does  not 
cease  to  animate  the  devotion  of  the  hero,  the  daily 
self-sacrifice  of  the  poor,  while  it  remains  obstinately 
impenetrable  to  direct  proof  One  word  before  I 
begin  my  imaginary  portrait :  shall  we  call  this  wager 
against  much,  if  not  al/y  of  the  evidence,  unreasonable  ? 
Unless,  as  many  speculators  have  thought,  the  only 
use  of  reflection  is  to  decree  its  own  annihilation,  this 
attitude  to  life  is  surely  the  only  one  which  can  be 
accepted  as  the  clearest  and  sanest  outcome  of  Reason 
— mature,  all-comprehensive,  despising  no  part  or  need 
of  complex  human  life;  above  all,  recognising  its 
supreme  worth  in  alliance  with  faith,  conceived  as 
willing  surrender  to  a  cause  which  satisfies  our  sense 
of  justice. 

§  7.  "The  moment  I  leave  the  groove  of  social 
routine,"  we  will  suppose  the  reflecting  man  to  say, 
"  I  find  myself  bewildered  with  complete  uncertainty. 
I  discover  there  is  no  guarantee  that  the  universe 
recognises  righteousness  or  corresponds  to  it.  From 
a  medical  and  scientific  standpoint,  a  transvaluation 
of  values  has  proceeded,  until  the  general  welfare  seems 
to  demand  a  sweeping  revision  of  accepted  canons, 
in  which  the  birth  and  the  survival  of  the  unfit  forms 


THE  MODERN  AGE  79 

the  most  urgent  problem.  I  am  told  that  the  world- 
process  has  no  meaning,  only  an  unceasing  wealth  of 
development  into  fresh  forms ;  and  that  the  conscious 
spirit  which  has  arisen  late  and  unhappily  to  survey 
the  task,  has  no  certain  aim  but  to  suffer  and  to  feel 
its  vanity :  "  the  owl  of  Minerva  takes  its  flight  only 
when  the  shadows  of  twilight  are  falling."  Even  if 
my  intelligence  could  accept  the  consolation  offered  by 
the  advance  and  improvement  of  the  race,  I  cannot 
observe  any  clear  tokens  that  this  is  possible,  or  if 
possible,  permanent;  or  if  permanent,  desirable:  nor 
will  my  sense  of  justice  allow  me  to  take  pleasure  in 
the  prospect  of  a  perfect  State  or  over-man,  even  if 
conceivable,  won  at  such  tremendous  cost,  the  reckless 
and  cruel  price  of  suffering  and  failure  through  the  ages. 
As  objective  realities,  nature  or  State,  become  stubborn, 
uniform,  and  oppressive,  so  my  sympathies  revert  from 
ideas  and  generalities — the  tyrants  of  the  race — to  the 
individual  sufferers  in  the  conflict,  which  can  only  be 
justified  by  a  problematic  and  precarious  millennium, 
itself  subject  to  the  inevitable  law  of  change  and  decay. 
I  observe  that  the  centre  of  gravity  shifts  from  the  free 
individual  of  the  Romantic  epoch  and  the  popular 
will  of  early  Liberalism,  to  the  incalculable  forces  of 
natural  and  social  evolution.  It  is  impossible  to  enlist 
my  efforts  on  behalf  of  that  which  must  in  any  case 
arrive;  the  mechanical  perfection  of  a  completely 
moralised  State  is  no  concern  of  mine ;  if  it  is  to  come, 
it  will  come  in  spite  of  me.  I  have  learnt  one  lesson 
at  least  in  one  school :  that  all  individual  effort  is 
superfluous,  that  the  course  of  civilisation  is  uncertain 
in  its  destiny,  puzzling  and  paradoxic  in  its  immediate 
issue,  in  its  very  perfection  soon  doomed  to  perish." 

§  8.  "  This  tyranny  of  a  law  which  we  cannot  under- 
stand forces  me  back  upon  my  subjective  states,  which 
I  still  fondly  call  myself,  under  which,  though  varying 
with   my  mood  and  physical  condition,  independent 


8o     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

of  my  will  and  calculation,  lies  a  demand  for  happiness 
and  for  satisfaction  which  finds  no  answer  in  the  scien- 
tific scheme  of  things.  I  am  confident  that  this  demand 
is  no  mere  selfish  wish  for  gratification ;  quite  the  reverse : 
it  is  a  claim  for  justice,  a  petition  for  permanence  and 
worth.  I  could  reconcile  myself  to  suffering  and  to 
failure  if  the  rest  of  men  were  to  come  by  their  rights, 
as  St.  Paul  to  be  anathema  for  his  brethren.  But  I  see 
in  their  life,  even  at  its  highest  level,  no  more  meaning 
than  in  my  own.  You  can  arrive  at  no  sense  of  worth  by 
adding  up  an  unending  series  of  painful  failures.  I  know 
not  which  to  pity  most :  those  who  in  an  illusion  of  freedom 
take  up  an  unavailing  and  abortive  struggle,  or  those 
who  have  lost  even  this  empty  privilege  of  self-deception, 
and,  folding  their  hands,  await  the  inevitable.  Do  I  then 
follow  their  example  of  quietism  and  abstention  ?  No, 
I  readily  admit  that  this  outlook  is  but  the  outlook  of 
reflection,  and  that  in  actual  life  I  work  cheerfully 
and  with  zest,  sometimes  in  dimness  and  with  uncertain 
aim,  yet  now  and  again  with  a  sustained  and  confident 
effort  I  am  half  ashamed  of.  Then  I  find  myself  (to 
my  own  surprise)  following  precepts  utterly  at  variance 
with  the  unanswerable  logic  of  the  speculative  system, 
and  I  cannot  help  discerning  in  the  content  of  the 
ethical  code  to  which  I  still  bow,  the  heritage  of  an 
older  faith  which  I  have  outgrown.  What  I  call  my 
instinct,  for  lack  of  a  better  term,  revolts  against  the 
dogma  of  my  reflection,  and  perhaps  it  is  no  very 
serious  menace  to  my  activity  or  my  peace  of  mind. 
But  I  cannot  forget  I  am  myself  born  into  the  traditions 
and  preoccupations  of  this  social  fabric,  charged  with 
ideas  and  scruples  for  which  I  cannot  account,  in  cooler 
moments  cannot  justify.  So  fenced  and  protected  I  may 
myself  defy  their  influence,  but  will  my  children  be 
proof?  Powerless  as  it  often  is  to  root  out  instinct, 
theory  cannot  fail  in  the  end  to  react  upon  practice.  I 
derive,  in  such  moments  of  chilling  reflection,  no  comfort 


THE  MODERN  AGE  Si 

either  from  an  Idealism  which  tells  me  *  All's  law  yet 
all's  love,'  that  what  *  is '  is  already  what  *  ought  to  be,' 
looked  at  from  a  sufficient  altitude,  the  lofty  watch- 
tower  of  eternity  (*  Religion,*  says  Taylor,  *  may  be 
defined  as  a  consciousness  of  our  perfection  as  members 
of  a  perfect  system  or  whole ') ;  or  from  the  strange 
creed  of  savagery  and  sentiment,  which  bids  an  infinitely 
remote  generation  march  to  a  victory,  which  baffles 
description,  over  our  countless  dead  bodies.  I  recognise 
the  immense  chasm  which  separates  the  spheres  and 
departments  of  human  activity ;  like  a  certain  German 
philosopher,  I  am  content  to  remain  *  a  pagan  in  head, 
a  Christian  at  heart ' :  but  I  cannot,  retaining  my 
prejudice  in  favour  of  life  and  increase  and  endeavour, 
conceal  my  suspicions  that  this  compromise  is  only  due 
to  a  period  of  transition :  the  whole  effect  of  the  new 
views  has  not  thoroughly  permeated  my  mental  fibre ; 
I  am  independent  of  its  conclusions  in  the  larger  part 
of  my  life.  But  if  this  creed  could  be  sincerely  accepted 
and  appropriated,  I  cannot  conceive  it  possible  that  the 
present  system  of  morals  could  survive,  or  a  scheme  of 
society  even  remotely  resembling  the  existing  order." 

§  9.  Such  is  the  mantle  of  academic  Doubt  which  in 
the  pressing  business  of  practical  life  falls  harmlessly 
from  our  shoulders.  This  curious  overriding  of  logic, 
this  respect  for  stubborn  facts  that  refuse  to  fit  in  the 
preconceived  plan,  this  complacent  sundering  of  various 
departments, — is  a  familiar,  and  to  some  an  honourable, 
feature  in  English  speculation,  since  the  revival  of 
independent  thought  in  this  country.  We  rise  above  the 
gloomy  creed  of  our  serious  reflection,  and  use  language 
and  make  ventures  in  the  field  of  Faith  which  we  find 
it  hard  to  justify.  It  is  a  mark  of  wilful  blindness  to 
deny  that  the  traditional  Christian  and  humanitarian 
standpoint  remains  without  serious  rival.  Even  Dogma 
has  suffered  less  than  moral  earnestness  or  prejudice, 
than  the  cause  of  the  poor.  We  may  again  sum  up  ; 
6 


82     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

all  current  explanations  of  the  Universe  (which  are 
not  frankly  mystical)  omit  end  and  purpose ;  they 
either  fall  below  or  claim  to  rise  above  an  ethical  con- 
ception :  in  both  cases,  the  individual  is  the  helpless 
plaything  of  unseen  forces,  of  heredity,  circumstance, 
mere  mode  of  universal  Reason,  or  tool  of  State- 
interest.  The  State,  in  spite  of  a  very  thin  disguise, 
has  completed  its  deliverance  from  moral  restraint ; 
and  the  doctrine  of  the  individual's  sovereignty,  or  even 
of  the  individual's  rights,  has  been  shaken  without  being 
in  theory  abandoned.  Ideal  aims,  philanthropic  or 
political,  have  either  been  satisfied  or  eliminated ;  the 
abstract  demands  of  the  older  Liberalism  have  been 
achieved  without  change  of  the  dependence  of  the 
masses  into  a  free  autonomy,  without  sensible  improve- 
ment of  their  condition ;  there  is  a  widely  felt,  an 
openly  expressed  disappointment  at  their  sloth  and 
facile  abandonment  of  the  principle  of  self-determination 
to  any  dictator  or  prince  of  finance, — a  privilege  won,  as 
it  was  supposed,  at  great  cost  by  the  heroes  of  reform. 
The  comparative  terms  'higher  and  lower,'  the  very 
epithets,  noble,  generous,  virtuous,  need  careful  analysis, 
and  are  constantly  employed  in  a  vague  and  popular 
sense  which  will  not  stand  examination.  There  is  a 
demand  for  immediacy  of  fruition  and  a  scorn  of  the 
constant  procrastination  of  the  end  to  a  remote  future : 
political  movements  have  become  social,  and  are  confined 
to  a  limited  area  of  candid  opportunism.  And  with  all 
this  stripping  of  sentiment  and  disguise,  the  more  the 
average  man  "  sets  his  affection  on  things  on  the  earth," 
so  the  more  do  men  of  thought  turn  with  perverse 
persistency  to  the  dim  comfort  of  distant  Utopias ;  and 
one  and  all  profess  a  creed  which  we  may  safely  predict 
will  never  be  accepted  by  our  masters,  a  creed  which  is 
contained  in  the  single  maxin,  "  Work  in  faith,  since  we 
cannot  help  the  present,  for  the  future  of  mankind." 
The  Quixotism  of  Nietzsch  and  Hartmann  shows  how 


THE  MODERN  AGE  83 

strong  is  the  sympathetic  instinct  in  man :  man  must 
have  an  object  to  work  for,  and  in  contempt  of  the 
present  they  fix  their  wistful  eyes  on  the  chance  of  a 
new  development. 

§  10.  And  yet  between  these  two  extremes,  cynical 
greed  and  idealist  surrender,  interest  in  the  social  and 
personal  side  of  Religion  has  not  disappeared ;  it  has 
rather  revived  than  survived.  It  has  ceased  to  be  mere 
traditional  conformity ;  it  has  become  not  more  logical, 
but  more  self-conscious.  Belief  in  demonstrable  truth 
or  authentic  fact  may  be  shaken,  but  Religion  is  deliber- 
ately retained  as  an  indispensable  factor  in  life,  almost 
in  defiance  of  the  evidence  which  seems  so  overwhelming, 
against  freedom  and  purpose  and  reward.  And  this  is 
so  because  such  ill-founded  faith  or  hope  somehow  does 
provide,  if  not  a  full  answer  to  curiosity,  at  least  a 
stimulus  to  action,  just  when  the  scientific  conception 
of  God,  Nature  and  the  State,  is  silent  and  ineffective. 
Let  me  read  a  few  words  of  a  veteran  inquirer  into  facts, 
who  has  strayed  beyond  his  due  boundary  into  another 
and  an  unfamiliar  realm :  "  The  Monism  of  the  Cosmos 
which  we  establish  on  the  clear  law  of  Substance  pro- 
claims the  absolute  dominion  of  eternal  iron  laws 
throughout  the  Universe.  It  shatters  at  the  same  time 
the  three  central  dogmas  of  the  Dualistic  philosophy, — 
the  personality  of  God,  the  immortality  of  the  Soul,  and 
the  Freedom  of  the  Will."  So  much  for  Hackel's 
destructive  side  :  now,  what  is  his  proposed  equivalent  ? 
"  Upon  the  vast  field  of  ruin  rises,  majestic  and  brilliant, 
the  new  Sun  of  our  realistic  Monism,  which  reveals  to 
us  the  wonderful  temple  of  Nature  in  all  its  Beauty.  In 
the  sincere  Cult  of  the  True,  the  Good,  and  the  Beautiful 
(which  is  the  very  heart  of  our  monistic  religion),  we  find 
ample  compensation  for  the  anthropistic  ideals  of  God, 
freedom  and  immortality,  which  we  have  lost."  (I  have 
taken  this  piece  of  popular  rhetoric  as  an  extreme 
instance,  yet  as  highly  typical  of  a  certain  spirit  which  is 


84     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

growing  rarer  to-day.  We  note  that  with  the  *  increas- 
ing reluctance '  of  Science  to  enter  into,  much  more  to 
pronounce  upon,  ultimate  problems,  the  dualistic  tend- 
ency to  sunder  sharply  the  domain  of  certainty  and  of 
hope  has  again  reappeared,  and  especially  in  the  works 
of  a  distinguished  English  writer  on  Apologetic.) 

§  II.  The  popular  mind  cannot  accept  this  somewhat 
pusillanimous  compromise,  which  seeks  to  retain  the  old 
Ethic  together  with  the  new  Hypothesis.  Without  being 
aware,  it  divides  the  world  into  the  realms  oi  fact,  of 
idea^  and  of  value.  And  the  deeper  interests  and 
motives  of  practical  life  fall  within  the  last.  No  know- 
ledge of  series  or  succession  can  give  a  sense  of  VALUE ; 
nor  can  the  fullest  acquaintance  with  abstract  Truth  and 
the  laws  of  logical  thought.  Everywhere  into  the  Scheme 
of  Evolution  crept  back  the  old  discredited  teleology 
in  terms  implying  purpose  and  design.  The  appeal  to 
sentiment  and  a  sense  of  obligation  is  rather  the 
defiance  than  the  corollary  of  our  scientific  knowledge. 
It  is  the  protest  of  individual  human  nature  against  its 
absorption  in  a  mysterious  universal :  in  it  is  a  demand 
not  so  much  for  happiness  as  for  leave  to  work.  "  In- 
explicable in  a  sense  as  man's  personal  agency  is — nay, 
the  one  perpetual  miracle — it  is  nevertheless  our  surest 
datum,  and  our  only  clue  to  the  mystery  of  existence." 
So  speaks  an  eminent  Scotch  Professor (Pringle  Patterson, 
Man's  Place  in  the  Cosmos,  vi.  and  vii.).  In  it  lies  the 
secret  of  men's  attachment  to-day,  in  spite  of  evidence, 
to  a  moral  life  which  they  cannot  account  for ;  to  a 
vigorous  hope  and  faith  in  a  future,  which  has  not  yet 
surrendered  to  apathy. 

§  12.  The  impulse,  the  incentive  to-day,  as  it  always 
has  been  whenever  moral  action  emerges  from  routine 
— lies  in  a  generous  hazard  and  venture,  in  what  we 
conceive  to  be  the  Highest  Cause.  Pure  Individualism 
is  an  impossible  ideal ;  however  much  the  Romantic 
spirit  glorifies  the  realising  of  self,  man,  his  instant  needs 


THE  MODERN  AGE  85 

satisfied,  always  seeks  some  object  on  which  to  lavish 
himself;  and  this  chivalry  is  never  separated  from  a 
dim  sense  that  only  in  so  doing  is  he  attaining  his  true 
development,  and  finding  the  secret  of  his  inmost 
nature.  In  the  lower  and  baser  life  it  is  torture 
to  acquiesce.  Self-sacrifice,  self-abnegation, — loosely 
though  we  use  these  terms  in  a  vulgar  sense, — never 
imply  a  plunge  into  a  bottomless  abyss  ;  we  cannot  part 
(though  we  try  to  insist  on  our  pure  and  disinterested 
motive)  our  own  welfare  from  the  sovereign  achievement 
of  our  design.  The  development  of  Pessimistic  thought 
into  cheerful  self-effacement,  into  appeal  for  sympathy, 
before  the  needs  of  the  race,  witnesses  to  man's  impera* 
tive  but  illogical  need  of  an  object  of  Devotion.  The 
animal  in  us  seeks  for  comfort  and  immediate  ease ; 
but  the  stings  of  this  hidden  and  unwelcome  impulse 
will  not  let  us  rest.  We  have  not  needed  to  point  out 
in  detail  how  closely  allied  is  the  current  scheme  of 
ethical  behaviour  to  the  faith  in  God  and  man,  in 
design  and  meaning  and  moral  value,  which  the  Chris- 
tian religion  can  alone  supply.  We  have  seen  how, 
little  by  little,  every  other  department  of  human  inquiry 
has  yielded  up  the  claim  to  moral  significance  which 
it  once  usurped.  Only  the  poet  speaks  of  Nature  as 
good  and  kindly;  we  have  done  for  ever  with  the 
mischievous  commonplaces  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Earnestly  as  thinkers  have  striven  to  save  in  theory 
the  conception  of  a  State's  moral  aim,  it  is  impossible 
to  deny  that  in  practice  the  State  follows  the  law  of 
every  other  organism.  The  content  of  our  present 
social  code  is  being  seriously  attacked,  not  without 
reason,  justice,  and  a  respect  for  the  rights  of  minorities, 
against  obsolete  tradition  and  bondage:  all  measures 
of  reform  have  for  their  sole  aim,  present  use.  But 
amid  this  slow  process  of  disintegration,  the  persist- 
ence of  our  instinctive  homage  to  a  certain  type  of 
life,  to  the  Central  Figure  in  human  history,  is  proof 


86     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

enough  of  its  permanent  value.  It  is  impossible  to 
accuse  Religion  of  insisting  upon  a  greater  surrender, 
a  larger  venture  of  faith,  than  the  Moral  life  demands. 
Amidst  our  wealth  of  concrete  fact  and  comfort,  the 
old  certainties  of  even  half  a  century  back  have  been 
forced  irretrievably  into  the  domain  of  Faith.  Our 
modern  society  (for  all  its  materialism  and  despondent 
reflection)  shows  itself  the  true  child  of  its  undoubted 
ancestry.  Its  life  is  the  same  bold  wager  of  early 
Christian  belief  against  Evil  and  a  secular  tyranny ;  the 
spontaneous  championship  of  the  weaker  and  oppressed, 
which  marks  Teutonic  chivalry  at  its  best.  Everywhere 
we  set  ourselves  against  meaningless  restraint  of  irre- 
vocable law.  We  have  dethroned  capricious  despot  and 
irresponsible  assembly ;  we  have  probed  some  of  the 
empty  phantoms  of  idealistic  abstractions.  We  refuse 
to  serve  except  where  we  can  approve ;  to  obey,  unless 
we  can  understand.  But  this  understanding  is  somehow 
an  act  of  Faith,  an  act  of  Hope ! 


LECTURE   VI 

WORTH  AND  WORK:   STRIVING  OF  GENUINE 
VALUE 

AdeX0ol,  iyu)  ifiaxrrbv  ov  Xoyi^ofxaL  KareiXTj^vai'  tv  5k,  rck.  jxkv  iirlau) 
iTTiKavdavbixevos,  tois  8k  ^/Mirpoadev  iir€KT€iv6fj.evos,  /card  aKoirbv  diJjKU) 
iirl  t6  ^pa^eiop  rijs  &vu  kXtJctcws.  **This  one  thing  I  do,  forgetting 
those  things  which  are  behind,  and  reaching  forth  unto  those  things 
which  are  before,  I  press  toward  the  mark  for  the  prize  of  the  high 
calling." — Phil.  iii.  13. 

§  I.  Subject :  usefulness  not  /rulk  of  Christian  religion  :  curious 
misconception  of  religion  as  anti-social  and  abstentionist :  this 
should  not  (if  true  in  the  past)  apply  in  the  future  :  likelihood  of 
a  retreat  of  the  religious  consciousness  into  itself. 

§  2.  Necessary  alliance  of  Church  and  Society:  the  'use'  of 
religion  determines  its  expansion  and  survival :  reflective  process, 
coercive  argument  merely  secondary  and  subordinate  :  the  Will-to- 
live,  irrespective  of  reflection,  aims  at  Satisfaction  :  at  its  zenith  in 
Man,  becomes  a  demand  for  worth  and  work :  relation  of  this 
to  the  post- Kantian  movement. 

§  3.  Must  this  impulse  to  life  be  checked,  when  it  reaches  the 
level  of  self-consciousness  ?  Christian  faith  denies  :  our  modem 
science  and  its  increasing  reluctance  to  do  more  than  record  series 
and  chronicle  facts  :  we  are  quite  ignorant  of  the  laws  which  govern 
rise  and  decay  of  nations  :  the  unit  alone  an  actual  experience. 

§  4.  Limit  to-day  placed  upon  ambitious  schemes  :  content  to 
secure  personal  and  individual  welfare,  and  right  immediate  wrong  : 
one  cause  of  this  more  modest  outlook  the  doctrine,  "man  as 
the  sport  of  unknown  powers  "  :  to  the  knight-errant  succeeds  type 
of  Laocoon  :  another  cause  is  the  democratic  demand  for  imme- 
diacy, after  too  long  waiting  :  {fatalism  and  savagery). 

§  5.  Current  of  egoism  arrested  in  the  seventeeth  century : 
mechanism  supplants  teleology  :  the  individual  in  philosophy  and 
the  Commonwealth  is  subordinated  to  the  Universal,  to  Substance  ; 
humility  takes  place  of  self-assertion :  rise  and  significance  of  Deism. 

§  6.  Speculations  of  Behmen  :   problem  of  the  ordinary  man  : 

87 


88     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

distance  of  God,  indifference  of  Nature, — he  takes  note  of  evil  and 
pain  neglected  in  the  Great  Systems  :  to  him  we  owe  conceptions 
of  antithesis  and  evolution  :  striving  in  nature  real,  not  fictitious. 

§  7.  Frank  mechanical  naturalism  of  the  Great  Systems  disclosed  : 
all  values  expelled  from  a  world  of  eternal  necessity  and  (so-called) 
Reason  :  Leibnitz  attempts  to  justify  to  the  individual  (for  no 
teleology  which  stops  short  of  him  can  be  accepted  in  equity) : 
his  memorable  decision  not  to  capitulate  to  Positivism. 

§  8.  Return  of  anthropocentric  standard  ;  "  not  man  by  nature, 
but  nature  by  man "  :  takes  up  the  old  Renaissance  impulse  to 
personal  realisation  submerged  under  the  Great  Systems :  Being 
and  working  are  the  same  thing  :  empty  mythology  of  changeless 
being  gives  way  :  worth  of  the  exceptional,  of  idiosyncrasy. 

§  9.  At  every  point  the  world  a  striving  :  possibilities  press 
forward  to  justify  themselves  :  "  while  still  man  strives,  still  must 
he  stray  ":  opposition  to  Calvinistic  autocrat,  to  Hobbes'  Leviathan  : 
Sympathy,  not  a  craven  compromise  or  surrender,  but  natural  : 
development  of  self,  not  retirement  from  world,  but  work  in 
society,  according  to  one's  faculties,  respecting  the  rights  of  others. 

§  10.  Great  reaction  also  even  in  the  eighteenth  century  against 
the  claims  of '  Reason  '  (as  universal,  impersonal,  conceding  nothing 
to  the  individual)  :  continual  criticism  of  Rationalistic  compla- 
cence :  powerful  influence  of  Rousseau  upon  Kant. 

§  II.  Kant  restates  the  value  of  the  plain  man:  free  moral 
action,  the  one  common  indispensable  element  in  human  nature  : 
his  principles  incompatible  with  Bureaucratic  autocracy,  or  un- 
limited Sovereignty  of  the  State  :  undying  feud  of  scientific  and 
'democratic'  {i.e.  religious)  conceptions  of  man. 

§  12.  The  Neo-Kantian  development ;  individual  ousted  from 
his  rights  :  rapid  degeneracy  in  the  notion  of  the  Source  of  Life  ; 
unconscious,  unmoral,  unknowable :  unavailing  pursuit  in  the 
complexity  of  Science  and  experience  of  a  Unity :  the  Gospel 
alone  comprehensive,  alone  able  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  the 
individual,  and  the  demands  of  Reason. 

§  I.  In  the  eighth  lecture  of  the  present  course  I 
hope  to  show  the  peculiar  fitness  of  the  Christian 
scheme  to  meet  the  difficulties  of  the  present  age, — 
a  conclusion  which  has  been  hitherto  so  much  antici- 
pated and  tacitly  conveyed  that  the  final  result  will 
seem  little  more  than  a  recapitulation.  And  it  will 
be  noticed  that  I  am  not  speaking  of  the  truth  of  the 
Christian   religion    so    much    as    its    usefulness.      The 


WORTH  AND  WORK  89 

Religious  instinct  is  personal  and  it  is  undying.  In 
its  assurances,  more  real  than  any  outward  experience, 
men  have  found  an  asylum  from  the  shocks  of  circum- 
stance, the  injustice  of  society,  the  despair  of  all  aim 
and  purpose  to  be  realised  on  this  earth.  There  is  a 
large  amount  of  truth  in  the  jealousy  with  which  inward 
peace,  founded  upon  incommunicable  conviction,  has 
been  regarded  by  the  Civil  or  Social  and  by  the  Ethical 
spirit.  Religion  has  always  seemed  to  some  a  cowardly 
refuge  from  reality,  a  deliberate  abandonment  of  common 
duties,  and  to  imply  a  pretension  to  rise  superior  to 
social  claims  and  to  ordinary  moral  restraint.  The 
devotee  left  ordinary  tasks  undone  to  revel  in  morbid 
hallucination,  pretending  to  a  direct  intercourse  with 
a  Power  conceived  as  the  enemy,  and  one  day  the 
avenger,  of  the  existing  order.  Religion,  in  a  word, 
has  been  conceived  as  individualist,  abstentionist,  and 
anti-social.  The  object  of  these  lectures  has  been  not 
so  much  to  challenge  the  relative  truth  of  this  impeach- 
ment in  the  past,  as  to  show  that,  however  this  may 
be,  it  must  not  apply  in  the  future.  We  ask  to  set 
free  Christian  religion  from  this  imputation ;  by  an 
appeal  to  the  simplest  method,  the  most  common 
experience,  from  the  charge  of  teaching  a  self-centred 
preoccupation  with  personal  interests  to  the  exclusion 
of  man's  natural  duties,  the  contempt  of  his  natural 
privileges,  as  member  of  a  society.  It  is  precisely  at 
this  point  that  the  truth  of  the  Gospel  seems  indispens- 
able. No,  I  have  not  directed  notice  to  the  proofs  of 
reasonable  or  historic  religion.  There  cannot  be  any 
possible  ground  for  supposing  that  Religion  is  in  peril, 
conceived,  as  we  have  seen,  as  a  direct  impulse  towards 
a  protector  and  a  guarantor  of  the  value  and  worth 
of  life.  But  there  may  be  some  ground  of  apprehension 
that  its  efficacy  and  intimate  connection  with  the  Social 
life  of  humanity  may  suffer ;  that  the  forces  which  seem 
to  threaten  what  we  have  termed  the  democratic  ideal 


90     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

may  resent  its  interference ;  and  that  faith  may  follow 
the  anchoritic  tendency  of  the  various  movements  of 
reform,  by  surrendering  some  department  of  human 
life  to  an  alien  power,  by  limiting  its  empire,  like 
stoicism,  to  some  inward  citadel,  and  by  retreating  into 
a  purely  subjective  state, — out  of  all  strict  relation  to 
things  as  they  are.  And  I  say  all  this  with  a  full 
knowledge  and  appreciation  of  the  vigorous  secular 
interests  of  the  churches  to-day. 

§  2.  In  the  two  lectures  which  intervene  between 
our  final  casting-up  of  results,  I  wish  to  examine  more 
closely  and  somewhat  more  critically  than  heretofore 
certain  phases  of  thought  in  the  centuries  which  have 
passed,  which  seem  to  render  such  an  alliance  between 
the  Church  and  Society  necessary  for  the  survival  of 
Western  Ideals.  I  have  to  begin,  as  Religion  always 
must,  with  the  simplest  and  ultimate  fact  of  experience, 
the  finite  consciousness.  "The  gods  we  stand  by  are 
the  gods  we  need  and  use,"  says  William  James  with 
admirable  audacity.  "  Religions  that  have  approved 
themselves,"  he  continues,  "  ministered  to  sundry  vital 
needs  :  no  religion  ever  yet  owed  its  prevalence  to  apo- 
deictic  certainty,"  or  ^coercive  arguments.'  It  will  not 
be  supposed  that  I  am  seeking  to  invalidate  the  analysis 
of  philosophy,  or  to  cast  doubt  on  the  dogmatic  fabric 
of  theologians;  but  it  is  no  part  of  our  task  in  the 
restricted  area  of  apologetic  we  have  chosen.  I  am 
only  maintaining  the  fact  plain  to  every  philosopher 
who  is  at  the  same  time  a  student  of  history  and  the 
human  heart,  that  all  such  reflective  process  is  secondary 
and  subordinate,  and  that  the  test  of  permanen  ce 
and  of  worth  is  use  and  trial.  Whatever  we  style 
that  mysterious  inner  impulse  towards  life,  new  states, 
development ;  whether  we  speak  of  the  natural  instincts, 
or  the  will-to-live,  or  the  striving  Monad,  or  the  sub- 
conscious forces,  or  the  *  little  perceptions '  of  Leibnitz, 
— it  is  clear  that  in  the  life  of  the  organism,  State  or 


WORTH  AND  WORK  91 

individual,  here  lies  the  motive  force.  Reflection  can 
marshal  these  undisciplined  levies ;  but  it  cannot  create 
them :  it  gives  aim,  concentration,  and  tendency,  but 
it  is  often  the  'amazed  spectator'  of  emotions  and 
passions  which  it  can  neither  explain  nor  control.  Now 
the  form  taken  by  this  restless  striving  at  its  highest 
development  is  a  demand  for  work  and  worth.  We 
may  trace  from  the  humblest  beginnings  the  impulse 
to  self-preservation  upwards  into  the  strictly  conscious 
centres  of  activity.  A  complacent  altruism  posing  as 
self-evident  truth,  as  independent  of  any  further  sanction, 
teaches  that  in  man,  this  impulse  having  become  self- 
conscious,  is  suddenly  arrested  and  reversed.  It  will 
be  a  matter  of  no  little  interest  to  trace  the  intimate 
connection  of  modern  creeds  of  disinterestedness  with 
the  teaching  of  Pessimism ;  and,  one  step  further,  of 
the  entire  movement  with  the  great  Pan-logistic  system 
of  Hegel.  But  I  may  here  forestall  the  issue  of  such 
inquiry,  at  least  in  this  respect :  it  seems  clear  that  the 
Reason  which  dominates  in  the  post- Kantian  Schools 
is  not  in  our  sense  conscious  or  purposive ;  that  but 
a  single  turn  of  sentiment  or  temperament  is  required 
to  represent  this  principle  as  mere  blind  and  struggling 
Will,  which  in  the  course  of  its  development  into  know- 
ledge of  self,  has  but  one  further  step,  one  only  duty 
left  to  perform,  to  renounce  the  strife ;  and  that  in 
spite  of  a  glorification  of  objective  State,  the  modern 
call  to  self-absorption  in  the  whole  is  but  a  natural 
consequence  of  this  world-conception, — allowing  to  the 
striver  no  satisfaction  in  achievement,  to  his  work  no 
enduring  value,  save  as  necessary  link  in  an  endless 
chain  ;  in  no  way  answering  the  craving  of  the  individual 
to  choose  his  cause,  and  to  become  his  true  self  in  so 
doing, — which  we  have  seen  is  the  underlying  motive, 
in  ethics  and  religion,  for  all  that  we  have  been  taught 
to  call  the  nobler  conduct  of  life. 

§  3.  Christian  faith  gives  an  answer  to  this  inarticulate 


92     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

appeal.  It  does  not  allow  the  impulse  to  life  and 
realisation  to  be  cneckea  wnen  it  reaches  the  le^^Tof 
conscious  satisfaction.  It  directs,  it  does  not"Trrest ;  it 
stimulates,  it  does  not  forbid.  !For  it,  death,"actual  or 
symbolical,  js.the  gate  and  condition,  ofx^wjne.  And 
with  consciousness  enters  a  new  centre  of  value ; — the 
individual  an  '  end-in-himself.'  In  the  vague  abstrac- 
tfons'which  have  coloured  of  perverted  thought  of  late, 
we  speak  of  the  education  of  the  human  Race,  the 
survival  or  welfare  of  a  society.  But  in  man,  solicitude 
for  the  type  comes  to  an  abrupt  end.  We  do  not  know 
the  laws  which  govern  the  development  and  pronounce  the 
doom  of  Societies  :  the  lessons  of  history  cannot  be  to- 
day conceived  as  so  clear  and  unmistakable  in  their 
purport.  It  would  be  a  tenable  thesis  that  the  decad- 
ence of  Society  was  essential  to  the  evolution  of  the 
finest  art,  the  highest  character  ;  and  that  (as  we  hinted 
last  time)  the  very  perfection  of  civilisation  carries  in 
it  a  sentence  of  death.  But  no  one  now  ventures  to 
pronounce  hastily  in  these  *  great  matters ' ;  and  as 
Science  manifests  "  an  increasing  reluctance  to  speak  on 
ultimate  questions,"  so  historical  and  anthropological 
research  corrects  error,  wrong  judgment,  and  contempt 
of  the  past, — but  assuredly  does  not  unveil  the  secrets 
which  govern  the  life  and  death  of  States,  nor  suggest  a 
cure  for  any  of  our  recognised  evils.  A  moral  judgment 
upon  history  is  too  often  a  feat  of  subjective  legerdemain, 
aided  by  bias,  and  beyond  doubt  distorted  by  imperfect 
knowledge.  The  "stream  or  current  that  makes  for 
righteousness  "  must  certainly  be  traced  elsewhere  than 
in  the  fortunes  of  nations,  or  the  requital  of  ancestral 
weakness  or  guilt  on  the  *  third  or  fourth  generation.' 
Reform,  with  all  its  faults,  has  nearly  always  implied  a 
return  to  this  unimpeachable  fact  of  experience,  the 
individual ;  when  he  is  lost  in  subservience  to  daemonic 
powers,  to  natural  law,  to  civic  absolutism,  to  ecclesi- 
astical patronage,  well   meaning  but  mistaken.     Such 


WORTH  AND  WORK  93 

movements  are  prompted  by  a  keen  sense  of  the  indi- 
vidual injustice,  which  is  the  too  heavy  price  paid  for  the 
triumph  of  some  towering  abstraction,  for  the  uniformity 
of  a  creed,  the  victory  of  an  Imperial  idea.  But  we 
must  mournfully  note  in  passing,  how  soon  is  such  a 
concrete  design  corrupted  by  the  natural  and  fatal  bias 
of  the  human  mind :  it  leans  ever  towards  unification 
unreal,  because  premature,  by  the  substitution  of  truth  as 
an  end-in-itself  instead  of  happiness.  The  Protestant 
movement  soon  elevated  above  subjective  needs  and 
experience  the  supremacy  of  orthodox  formula;  the 
Revolution,  starting  with  the  Rights  of  Man,  ended  in 
absolute  disregard  of  all  safeguards  of  individual  liberty; 
the  Liberal  movement  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  been 
rather  a  victory  of  Ideas  and  of  constitutional  principles, 
than  a  steady  vindication  of  the  claims  of  the  poor  and 
the  oppressed;  and  emancipation  on  two  continents 
sacrificed  the  real  welfare  of  the  slave  in  his  intrinsic 
worth  as  2l  person  to  the  impatient  vanity  of  an  immediate 
and  theatrical  triumph. 

§  4.  The  object  of  our  inquiry  is  an  answer  to  this 
question :  Why  are  we  to-day  disposed  to  limit  our 
ambitious  schemes  ;  to  consult  the  present  interests  of  the 
actual  strivers  in  the  conflict ;  to  dismiss  as  beyond  our 
strength  the  furtherance  of  Utopian  schemes  of  Society, 
and  to  revive  once  more  our  interest  in  the  sordid 
particular  ?  There  are  two  chief  reasons  for  this  whole- 
some change  of  front ;  they  are  intimately  connected  in 
origin,  but  from  the  one  I  can  foresee  nothing  but  an 
increase  of  the  despondency  which  tinges  much  of  our 
present  thought  and  feeling ;  from  the  other,  a  hopeful  if 
more  modest  endeavour  to  centre  attention  upon  the 
single  reality, — the  human  consciousness  as  a  seat  of  joy 
or  pain.  Into  all  departments  of  letters,  into  every  branch 
of  thought,  there  has  crept  a  conviction  that  we  cannot 
ascertain  the  drift  nor  control  the  advance  of  the  un- 
known powers  which  move  the  world.    It  is  to  no  purpose 


94     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

that  philosophers  and  statesmen  repeat  their  comfortable 
assurance  that  the  "real  is  the  rational,"  the  line  of 
progress  in  Society  clearly  defined,  and  the  doubt  and 
uncertainty  of  moral  truth  and  enlightenment  slowly 
passing  away,  the  barriers  which  divide  nations,  jealous 
suspicion,  giving  place  to  the  sense  of  a  common 
humanity.  If  we  turn  from  an  academic  thesis  to 
Thought  in  its  broader  'meaning, — all  the  obscure  yet 
potent  forces  which  press  on  irresistibly, — we  shall  find 
an  entire  absence  of  any  such  hopeful  assurance.  Man 
as  the  moulder  of  his  destinies  in  the  old  chivalrous 
romance  gives  way  to  Man  the  puppet  of  unseen  forces  ; 
and  Laocoon  has  become  a  type  of  his  unavailing 
struggle.  It  is  partly  because  of  this  sense  of  undeviat- 
ing  necessity  that  the  immediate  want,  the  immediate 
duty,  is  pursued  with  feverish  eagerness ;  that  the 
engrossment  in  business  to  spare  the  mind  the  pain  of 
reflection  has  become  so  marked  an  aim  in  modern  life. 
And  if  our  drama  and  our  fiction  is  invaded  by  this 
sense  of  human  submission  to  uncontrolled  and 
incalculable  powers,  the  second  motive  is,  that  untrained 
democratic  instinct  which,  in  default  of  any  clear 
purpose  in  the  voyage,  asks  to  be  set  ashore  to  reap  at 
least  the  gratification  of  present  desires  ;  and  with  increas- 
ing vehemence  seeks  for  justice  and  equality,  not  for 
some  future  race,  but  here  and  now.  It  is  because  we 
believe  that  the  Christian  message  has  an  answer  to 
both  these  problems  that  we  would  justify  it  from  the 
side  of  use.  We  compare  two  volumes ;  the  one  it  may 
be  of  idealist  philosophy,  where  the  outlook  is  serene, 
though  the  atmosphere  somewhat  rarefied ;  and  the 
other,  some  calm  yet  remorseless  picture  of  life  as  it 
actually  is  under  a  self-complacent  civilisation.  It  is 
because  we  fear  the  divorce  of  thought  and  justice, 
a  blindness  to  the  real  dangers  which  beset  a  society  of 
sundered  and  unsympathetic  classes ; — because  we 
believe  social  endeavour  rests  not  on  the  fear  for  public 


WORTH  AND  WORK  95 

stability,  but  upon  a  reverence  for  immortal  souls; — 
because  a  brutal  demand  for  equal  rights  and  equal  enjoy- 
ment can  only  be  appeased  and  restrained  by  religious 
guidance  ; — that  we  confront  seriously  yet  with  confid- 
ence the  fatalism  and  savagery  which  are  secretly  but 
certainly  undermining  our  Ideals. 

§  5.  For  the  demand  of  the  individual  for  free  scope 
and  a  share  in  the  privileges  as  well  as  the  burden  of  a 
complex  civilisation,  it  is  impossible  not  to  entertain  the 
liveliest  sympathy.  A  glance  at  the  motives  of  the  chief 
phases  of  thought  subsequent  to  the  Reformation,  will 
amply  justify  this  claim,  even  if  we  doubted  it.  Society, 
now,  is  no  longer  guided  by  philosophical  theory ;  this 
represents  a  perhaps  insignificant  fraction  of  the 
dominant  influences ;  elsewhere  we  have  to  seek  the 
origins  and  impulse,  the  sting  and  spur  of  movement. 
But  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  permit  of 
generalisation,  which  our  own  disclaims.  Expressed 
thought  was  more  representative  then  ;  perhaps  less 
frequent  and  vocal,  more  centralised  and  authoritative  ; 
and  the  philosopher  was  the  spokesman  of  a  deeper 
feeling,  of  a  wider  public,  of  more  receptive  scholars, 
because  in  the  still  considerable  integrity  of  the  world  of 
knowledge  and  of  life,  each  man  did  not  vanish  out  of 
sight  down  his  separate  avenue  of  interest,  his  tunnel  of 
restricted  experience,  in  that  strict  specialism  which  to- 
day divides  us,  alas !  too  often,  from  sympathy  and 
common  aim.  Still  demanding  to  cover  the  whole  field, 
still  confident  that  the  world  without  would  correspond 
to  the  logic  of  the  world  within,  the  framers  of  the  great 
Constructive  Systems  of  the  seventeenth  century 
attempted  a  unification  which  would  be  impossible  to- 
day. "  Pay  no  heed  to  the  individual " ;  such  was,  in 
brief,  the  accepted  maxim.  The  current  of  egoism  was 
suddenly  arrested  and  deliberately  held  in  check.  The 
age  of  brisk  and  venturesome  personal  enterprise  was 
over;  the  licence  of  Anabaptist,  the  open  disbelief  of 


96     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

Bruno  and  Vanini,  the  fissiparous  tendencies  in  the 
Reformed  creeds,  had  alarmed  the  respectable, — that 
body  which,  often  silent  and  inconspicuous,  nevertheless 
frames  public  opinion  and  guides  affairs.  The  central 
powers  had  benefited;  the  Catholic  Reaction  and  the 
Protestant  doctrine  of  a  Ruler's  Right  Divine  had 
tightened  the  fetters  over  timid  and  willing  slaves.  The 
glow  of  the  early  dawn  of  Renaissance  and  Reformation 
had  faded  into  a  grey  twilight.     In  place  of  the  luminous 

*  Forms '  of  classical  and  material  thought,  self-existent 
or   divinely  created,  men  saw   nowhere    anything   but 

*  forces.'  In  every  department.  Mechanism  seemed  to 
replace  Teleology  ;  and  we  may  remark  that  ever  since 
theology  and  speculation  have  been  occupied  with  the 
single  problem  of  their  reconciliation.  The  old  sympathy 
between  man  and  Nature  was  gone ;  he  could  not 
interpret  her  aims  and  ends  by  his  own  analogy,  he 
could  but  chronicle  her  sequences,  and  adapt  to  his  own 
uses  her  blind  uniformity.  To  Descartes,  quantity 
supplants  quality,  everything  but  extension  and  motion 
is  subjective ;  God  is  past  comprehension ;  to  fix  His 
purpose  or  divine  His  counsels  is  mere  presumption. 
His  dualist  system  soon  parts  into  the  purely  mechanical 
side  of  the  French  enlightenment,  as  frank  Naturalism 
on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  the  universal 
Spiritualism  of  Spinoza  and  the  occasionalists.  Concen- 
trate all  attention  on  the  Substance,  from  which  individuals 
spring;  whether  as  mechanical  automata  {Vhomnte 
machine  of  the  next  century)  or  as  passing  modes  of 
the  Divine  thought.  "  God  is  the  sole  truly  efficient 
cause"  (Sylvanus  Regis).  A  greater  part  of  human 
experience,  all  human  activity,  was  relegated  to  the 
inconceivable.  Conscious  reason  had  one  task,  to 
contemplate  not  the  striving  forces  or  jostle  of  individauls, 
but  fixed  '  forms '  and  everlasting  unity.  "  Ego  ipse,"  says 
Malebranche,  "  spectator  mundi  maximum  sum  et  juge 
miraculum  .  .  .  ubi  nihil  vales,  ibi  nihil  velis." 


WORTH  AND  WORK  97 

Humility  takes  the  place  of  self-assertion;  deference 
to  State-authorised  religion  the  place  of  personal  con- 
viction ;  and  morality  became  a  recommendation  to 
submit  to  the  world-order,  and  patiently  explore  with 
the  ancient  cynics  the  limits  of  human  interference  (ra 
l^'riiJAV  K.  fJUfj).  Together  with  the  pantheistic  tendency, 
which  after  a  thorough  rearrangement  of  the  material 
sphere  recalls  the  exiled  Deity  to  a  more  complete 
sovereignty  than  before,  it  is  easy  to  detect  the  origins  of 
the  later  English  and  French  Deism  in  the  Cartesian 
School.  Identified  with  Nature,  God  seemed  to  lose 
all  ethical  meaning ;  the  Deist  movement  is  ethical  and 
anthropomorphic ;  though  it  is  not  difficult  to  under- 
stand Toland's  relapse  into  pure  pantheism.  "  I  be- 
long," says  Henry  IV.,  "  to  the  religion  of  all  good  and 
honest  men."  The  epoch  of  natural  religion,  irrespective 
and  independent  of  outward  and  local  forms,  has  begun. 
Higher  than  clear  philosophic  reasoning,  stands  natural 
instinct.  The  world  so  uniform  and  well  regulated,  had 
once  a  prime  mover ;  and  the  slender  creed,  common  to, 
and  underlying  all  special  forms  of  religion,  consisted  in 
the  two  articles :  (i)  God  is  to  be  worshipped  by  moral 
conduct ;  and  (2)  rewards  and  penalties  will  follow 
human  action.  In  Deism  men  strove  to  retain  the 
two  needs  of  theory  and  of  practical  life:  a  first 
cause  and  a  moral  end  for  the  existing  order.  And  it 
is  clear  that  the  opposite  movement,  which  claimed  to 
bring  the  Divine  so  close  to  creation  and  to  man,  did  in 
truth  increase  the  distance  and  the  want  of  sympathy ; 
for  man  (as  we  have  seen)  can  understand  none  but  a 
moral  purpose,  and  will  pay  no  heed  to  God  if  He 
be  not  Judge  and  Reward er  as  well  as  Creator. 

§  6.  Now  it  is  just  from  this  problem  that  the  un- 
tutored Behmen  starts  his  strange  but  fertile  speculation. 
While  Spinoza  is  strictly  but  the  logician  of  Cartesianism, 
and  is  falsely  claimed  as  the  source  of  inspiration  to  the 
Neo-Kantians,  it  is  in  truth  Behmen  who  pierces  to 
7 


98     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

the  root  of  things  in  spite  of  his  concrete  allegory,  and 
utters  new  thoughts,  which  the  nineteenth  century,  above 
all,  has  commented  and  explained.  He  begins  with  the 
problem  of  the  ordinary  man:  the  distance  of  God, 
the  indifference  of  Nature.  He  is  neither  the  pure 
thinker  nor  the  mystic;  he  is  nearer  to  the  common 
consciousness,  therefore  nearer  to  us  to-day,  than 
Descartes  or  Spinoza.  In  him  a  philosophical  desire  to 
understand  the  interrelation  of  things  meets  and  blends 
with  a  religious  longing  for  union.  He  faces  the  problem 
of  Evil  and  of  pain,  which  receives  (it  need  scarcely  be 
said)  but  scanty  attention  in  the  Great  Systems.  How 
came  Evil  and  the  manifold?  Trcogy  with  Plotinus  as  with 
Anaximander  and  Empedocles  and  Hartmann,  ra  'TroXKoi 
aTO  rov  ivog  v^iffrriKZ  ?  And  herein  he  marks  the  advance 
toward  Leibnitz  from  the  complacent  and  eternal  self- 
identity  of  Spinoza's  God-Nature.  He  enriches,  it  has 
been  said,  German  language  and  speculation  by  the 
term  and  the  idea.  Development.  Antithesis^  evolution — 
here  are  perhaps  the  two  chief  thoughts  of  our  time  !  It 
is  from  Behmen  that  Fichte  and  Schelling  and  Hegel 
borrow  that  strange  notion,  variously  expressed:  the 
^  dark  spot  in  God!  For  to  him  there  must  be  wrath 
as  well  as  love  in  God;  bitterness  as  needful  foil  to 
sweet ;  without  resistance  nothing  can  reveal  itself.  The 
stidving  is  real ;  the  conflict  of  the  visible  and  the  moral 
world  is  no  empty  illusion,  no  mere  innocent  play  of 
the  Divine  forces  with  themselves.  Even  in  the  deepest 
nature  of  the  Almighty  involuntary  movement  comes 
before  conscious  aim.  Lucifer,  type  of  self-will,  never 
truly  explained  or  fixed  clearly  in  the  system,  stands  for 
the  early  assertive  personality,  mistaken  not  in  effort  but 
in  aim,  Behmen,  incomplete  and  incoherent,  yet  gives  us 
two  conceptions,  which  lie  at  the  root  of  the  later 
development,  the  law  of  contrast  and  of  evolution. 
Even  Spinoza,  who  does  not  here  claim  further  notice 
from  our  standpoint,  betrays  a  similar  emphasis  on  the 


WORTH  AND  WORK  99 

involuntary  in  each  being,  the  impulse  to  self-preserva- 
tion, which  is  its  differentia  and  is  a  part  of  the  Divine. 

§  7.  Whilst  the  English  School  were  intent  on  the 
Criticism  of  Universals,  Substance  and  Cause,  and  on  the 
practical  problem  of  the  judicious  separation  between 
Belief  and  Reason,  naturalism  and  religion,  each  in  their 
fitting  and  respective  province ;  whilst  (to  anticipate  a 
few  years)  the  French  School  were  drawing  to  a  logical 
and  legitimate  conclusion  the  Cartesian  doctrines,  were 
eliminating,  in  the  vaunted  simplicity  of  the  'Age  of 
Reason,'  all  superfluous  element,  every  otiose  principle ; 
modern  thought  was  moving  underground,  it  may  be, 
and  obscurely,  along  the  lines  of  Leibnitzian  speculation. 
Man  cannot  be  content  with  a  science  oifacts^  the  *  that ' ; 
or  of  ideas^  the  *what  and  how?' — he  must  have  be- 
sides a  science  of  values.  The  flimsy  and  borrowed 
trappings  of  theology  dropped,  and  disclosed  the  pure 
naturalism  of  the  Great  Systems :  men  saw  that  they 
were  dreary,  worn-out,  and  godless;  they  lived  on  the 
bounty  of  obsolete  ideas,  and  words  which  had  long  lost 
their  meaning.  Mechanism  and  necessity  has  expelled 
all  values.  He,  Leibnitz,  will  accept  this  and  carry  it  out 
and  beyond  itself  into  a  theory  of  ends,  into  teleology ; 
that  is,  he  will  explain  and  justify  the  existing  order  to 
the  average  mar. ;  he  will  find  a  place  in  it  for  him ! 
For  it  must  again  be  repeated :  a  science  of  ends  and 
values  cannot  disregard  this  claim ;  it  cannot  be  allowed 
to  dwindle  into  a  vaporous  eulogy  of  absolute  perfection 
or  self-identity;  if  it  aims  at  practical  success,  not  a 
merely  logical  victory,  it  must  satisfy  the  sense  of 
justice,  the  craving  for  work,  the  impulse  towards  loyal 
adhesion  to  a  genuine  cause.  There  is  something 
pathetic,  (if  precocious,)  in  the  picture  of  Leibnitz 
meditating  at  the  age  of  fourteen  in  a  gloomy  forest, 
like  Hercules  at  the  choice  of  the  ways  and  the  divid- 
ing paths.  Shall  he  join  the  new  and  triumphant  school 
of  force  and  mechanism?     Shall  he  try  to  arrest  this 


loo    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

divorce  of  knowledge  from  the  needs  of  man,  and  sur- 
mount the  fatal  edifice  of  certainty  with  the  old  dis- 
credited dogma  of  Form  and  teleology  ?  He  decides  not 
to  surrender  ends  to  positivism.  And  that  he  may 
bring  Nature  back  again  into  sympathy  and  communion 
with  man,  he  reverses  the  method  which  then  character- 
ised all  scientific  thought. 

§  8.  He  will  explain  Nature  by  man,  not  man  by 
Nature !  He  refuses  to  come  back,  late  and  fatigued,  to 
a  consideration  of  himself  and  that  experience  of  self 
which  is  the  sole  immediate  datum !  He  will  not,  on 
the  other  hand,  become  exclusively  absorbed  in  the 
mysteries  within ;  is  neither  pure  naturalist,  arriving 
startled  and  helpless  at  the  inexplicable  phenomenon  of 
human  agency,  nor  pure  psychologist,  whom  nothing 
concerns  except  the  laws  of  thought,  the  limits  or  the 
faculties  of  the  human  understanding.  He  will  unite ; 
he  cannot,  in  the  interests  of  the  practical  life  he  served 
so  well,  let  the  outer  and  the  inner  world  drift  apart 
till  they  *  confront  idly.'  He  had  still  confidence  in  the 
harmonising  power  of  intelligence;  a  happy  gift,  to 
which  we  to-day,  lost  in  minutiae  and  overwhelming 
press  of  detail,  can  no  longer  lay  claim.  He  ensouls 
body,  he  will  not  embody  mind  !  He  takes  up  the  old 
Renaissance  impulse  to  life,  development,  activity ;  at 
first  involuntary,  yet  gradually  in  the  strife  to  realise 
itself,  gaining  in  clearness  of  aim  and  enjoyment.  In 
place  of  motionless  calm,  lying  for  the  eye  of  faith  be- 
hind the  empty  illusion  of  conflict,  he  sets  the  ideal 
of  progress,  continuous  development,  conation,  effort. 
Existence  is  continuous,  yet  are  the  manifold  real  and 
independent ;  the  atom  or  the  monad  (each  in  its 
several  stage)  is  big  with  its  past  and  pregnant  with  its 
future  state;  is  the  centre  of  joy  and  pain,  and  therefore 
alone^  or,  in  the  highest  sense,  real.  Being  and  working 
are  the  same  thing;  for  the  plain  man,  surely  not  a 
discovery  to  be  despised ;  low  on  the  ladder  of  existence 


WORTH  AND  WORK  loi 

as  he  stands,  work,  activity  never-ending,  is  his  portion 
and  his  higher  privilege ;  others  may  move  in  the  cold 
but  serene  heights  among  the  stars.  Substance  is  no 
all-embracing  unity,  which  the  more  it  receives  has  the 
less ;  like  Saturn  devours  its  own  children ;  and  is  none 
the  richer  though  all  the  wealth  of  concrete  life  is  poured 
into  it.  Writing  de  notione  siibstanticB^  he  desires  to 
reach  a  purer  conception  of  substance,  as  an  "active 
force  tending  without  ceasing  to  enter  into  action." 
"  Omnem  substantiam  agere  et  omne  agens  substantiam 
appellari."  Here  is  the  new  motto.  With  him  the 
empty  mythology  of  colourless  and  incomprehensible 
Being  is  over :  hvoL(pn<;  kyj^ody^oLriarog  ovgU.  In  each  tiny 
centre  of  life  and  vigour  lies  obscure  and  concealed  the 
law  of  its  development ;  it  is  their  individuality  that  is  of 
interest  and  value,  their  uniqueness,  not  their  common 
conformity  to  type.  Galileo  had  foreseen  our  modern 
love  of  the  concrete,  the  exceptional,  when  he  had  said 
that  stones  were  useful  and  worthy  of  note  because,  not 
in  spite,  of  their  irregularities.  "  Be  yourself,"  Leibnitz 
might  say,  "  carry  out  the  mission  God  sets  you  in  your 
special  equipment ;  He  is  a  constitutional  monarch,  and 
no  all-absorbing  Reason ;  bend  neither  to  the  tyranny  of 
State  or  of  Idea." 

§  9.  When  the  world  is  reduced  to  an  orderly  mech- 
anism, then  the  real  interest  begins  in  earnest,  so  far  is 
it  from  being  exhausted  by  this  setting  forth  of  fact  and 
sequence.  That  which  alone  really  exists  is  Force,  and 
force  is  substance.  These  centres  of  energy,  at  first 
with  blind  and  obscure  movements,  press  forward  to 
attain  "  actuality ;  and  this  highest  privilege  is  granted 
to  those  that  fit  into  the  order  of  things."  Development 
is  not,  as  with  Locke's  tabula  rasa^  as  in  Helvetius' 
theory  of  early  training,  passive  coercion  from  without, 
either  of  Nature  or  a  Minister  of  Education  ;  it  is  unfold- 
ing from  within,  not  by  acquiring  fresh  content,  but  by 
clearing  what  is  already  given.      The  world's  essence 


102    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

is  at  every  point  a  striving,  a  development,  a  progress. 
The  origin  of  this   is   to   be   found  deep  down  in  the 
nature  of  Godhead  itself,  "lurking  possibilities,   as  in 
Behmen,   press   to   the    front    and    struggle   with   one 
another — a  prelude   to    the   actual    conflict    of   exist- 
ence."    I  do  not  in  the  least  seek  to  justify  the  often 
obscure  and  mythical  exposition  of  Leibnitz :  I  am  not 
concerned   to  prove  the  *  truth '   of  this   or  any  other 
system ;   *  Truth '  is   a  word  which  needs  very  careful 
usage.     But  he  sufficiently  represents  the  justification 
in  the  world  of  reflection,  the  revival  of  a  tendency,  of 
an  impulse,  in  man,  which  we  may  safely  say  will  only 
die  with  the  race.     He  is  weakest  in  the  ready  optimism 
by  which  he  was  unfortunately  best  known  in  the  Schools 
of  the  eighteenth  century.     He  wishes  to  show  an  over- 
plus of  good  in  this  world  of  competing  monads:   to 
demonstrate   that  which    to  mystics   of  all   time   has 
seemed  so  doubtful,  that  it  was  worth  while  for  the  One 
to  issue  into  the  manifold.     The  usual  Stoic  arguments 
are  forthcoming,  the  weakness  and  pettiness  of  human 
knowledge;  and  the  universal  welfare  as  supreme  aim, 
not  ^rvy  private  good ;  but  he  adds  what  is  a  comment  on 
the  mediaeval  felix  culpa^  the  sense  that  every  "  fall  is 
a  fall  upwards,"  that,  as  in  Goethe's  prologue,  "  whilst 
still  man  strives,  still  must  he  stray," — that  pregnant 
but  perilous  thought  which  indeed  saves  from  despair, 
ennobles  failure,  and  puts  life  into  fresh  resolve,  while 
it  may  often  excuse  the  selfish  vagaries  of  egoism  (as 
in  Schlegel's  Lucinde)^  and  insist  that  the  man  of  genius 
shall  be  judged  by   his  own   law.     Agreeably    to   the 
dawning  conceptions  of  constitutionalism  and  reciprocal 
rights,  in  his  scheme  of  the  Universe  or  of  the  State, 
he   will    have    no    Calvinistic    autocrat,   no   absolutist 
*  Leviathan.'     The   '  city  of  God '  has  lost  some  of  its 
Augustinian  harshness  and  dualism ;  He  reigns  among 
His   children    like    a    kind   father,    not   as    an    angry 
judge.     In  the   supreme  ethical  problem,  Leibnitz,  in 


WORTH  AND  WORK  103 

common  with  the  English  School  of  moralists,  recognises 
in  sympathy  (which  impels  us  to  help  another)  no 
craven  compromise,  but  a  natural  faculty.  All  starts 
from  this  impulse  to  self-realisation  ;  and  the  test  and 
guarantee  of  advance  is  pleasure  experienced  in  the 
competition.  To  preserve  self  is  not  (as  thought 
Spinoza)  a  retreat  to  the  calm  of  contemplation,  to 
cease  to  be  *  a  part  of  nature '  tossed  by  passion, — but 
to  take  a  share  in  the  work  of  the  world,  and  while 
respecting  others'  rights  to  hold  one's  own. 

§  10.  In  that  eighteenth  century,  which  we  too  hastily 
qualify  as  Rationalist  because  we  judge  from  the  loudest 
voices  and  the  greatest  catastrophe,  there  is  abroad 
a  great  and  significant  reaction  against  the  claims  of 
Reason.  With  the  Dogmatist,  things  correspond  with 
the  thought  but  not  with  the  needs  of  men  :  aristocratic 
intelligence  and  seclusion  could  understand  what  was 
for  ever  hidden  from  the  normal  man.  The  systems  of 
universal  mechanism,  of  arbitrary  State-control,  left 
everything  out  of  relation  to  the  average  unit.  Pure 
egoist  morals  explained  none  of  those  tenderer,  and,  as 
we  call  them,  unselfish  emotions,  which  are  among  the 
commonest  experiences  of  daily  life : — 

**  Man  by  his  dim  impulse  driven 

Of  the  Right  way  hath  ever  consciousness." 

(Prologue  to  Faust.) 

Feeling,  instinct,  inbred  sympathy, — such  is  the  obscure 
and  indefinite  starting-point  of  the  system  of  Hutcheson, 
Shaftesbury,  Hume,  and  Adam  Smith.  Protest  against 
cold  Reason  of  the  Enlightened,  as  against  misused 
privilege  of  authority,  was  the  chief  note  in  Rousseau's 
summons  to  the  world.  But  in  spite  of  his  excursions 
to  do  battle  with  the  miraculous,  David  Hume  is  the 
signal  type  of  anti-Rationalist.  Reason  (as  then  con- 
ceived and  understood)  he  disparages  of  set  purpose ;  and 
claims  in  practical  life  to  follow  other  guidance.      Nay, 


I04    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

it  is  Hume  who,  with  clearer  vision  of  men's  needs  than 
had  the  voluble  authors  of  the  Arguments  from  Design, 
saw  that  Religion  rises  from  the  distress  of  the  world 
and  the  misery  of  the  heart :  this  is  a  sense  that  Evil, 
so  far  from  being  a  hindrance,  is  a  motive  to  Belief. 
Throughout  the  eighteenth  century  continual  criticism 
was  levelled  at  Rationalism.  It  was  obscurely  seen, 
or  vaguely  felt,  that  not  merely  Revealed  and  Institu- 
tional Religion,  but  the  barest  minimum  of  natural 
theology,  nay,  the  very  foundation  and  presupposition  of 
the  moral  sense  and  the  practical  life,  rest,  though  nearest 
to  men's  hearts,  upon  indemonstrable  hypothesis.  Now, 
in  this  entire  movement,  it  is  the  average  man  who 
is  in  the  philosopher's  mind ;  or,  unaware  of  the  extent  of 
his  power,  is  guiding  from  behind  the  scenes  the  advance 
of  thought !  It  is  impossible  to  deny  the  powerful 
influence  of  Rousseau  upon  the  whole  tone  and  temper 
of  Immanuel  Kant.  In  his  'school  of  Humanity'  he 
learnt  his  chief  lesson,  the  dignity  and  equality  of  man. 
But  the  great  masses  of  mankind  are  disqualified  from 
any  share  in  the  feats  of  logic,  the  delights  of  the  artistic 
sense,  the  comforts  of  so-called  civilisation.  Where 
shall  we  fix  the  *  lowest  terms '  of  human  nature  ?  Man's 
differentia  is  not  Thought,  but  Action.  It  is  certainly 
true,  in  a  sense,  to  say  with  modern  critics  of  Kant,  that 
only  Reason  can  heal  the  wounds  that  Reason  herself 
has  inflicted.  This  has  been  so  often  repeated  that  we 
fail  to  notice  that  the  sentence  is  not  a  statement  of 
fact,  not  even  a  pious  wish,  but  rather  a  play  on  words, 
on  the  ambiguous  uses  of  a  common  term. 

§  II.  In  effect,  Kant  is  in  thorough  sympathy  with 
the  reaction  which  asserted  with  emphasis  the  rights  of 
feeling,  and  distinguished  (as  Hume  had  done)  the 
province  of  faith  and  knowledge.  Only  in  the  life  of 
moral  action  did  he  see  a  ground  for  a  universal  appeal. 
"It  can  have  been  no  mere  accident,"  says  Professor 
Hoffding,  (ll.  33.  Eng.  trans.), "  that  several  of  the  leaders 


WORTH  AND  WORK  105 

of  the  movement  to  the  abolition  of  serfdom  were  former 
pupils  of  Kant."  A  true  morality  cannot  be  found 
without  political  freedom,  which  implies  duties  rather 
than  privileges,  and  puts  an  end,  with  the  nameless 
oppression  of  the  poor,  to  the  irresponsible  mirth  of 
the  happy  and  child-like  slave.  I  need  not  here  note 
that  such  liberty,  which  makes  men^  is  incompatible  not 
merely  with  bureaucratic  autocracy,  but  with  any  form 
of  majority  absolutism  ;  and  that  the  supposed  victory 
over  tyranny  has  to  be  fought  again  and  again,  in  the 
unending  feud  between  the  scientific  and  the  religious 
or  democratic  conception  of  man,  in  the  perpetual 
conflict  between  the  sovereignty  of  the  State  and 
Individual  right,  the  general  good  and  respect  for  the 
part. 

§  12.  We  shall  trace  next  time  the  current  of 
speculation  which  took  its  rise  from  Konigsberg.  We 
shall  have  occasion  to  note:  (i)  how  rapidly  the  active 
moralism  of  Kant  became  tinged  with  a  mystical 
melancholy;  (2)  how  once  again  Thought,  with  un- 
abated pretension,  gradually  usurped  the  chief  place ; 
(3)  how,  from  his  new-found  or  newly  proclaimed 
rights,  the  individual  was  ousted ;  (4)  how  with  ominous 
and  rapid  decline  this  Sovereign  Reason,  as  Source  of  all, 
seated  at  the  centre  of  things  and  in  the  human  brain, 
became  first  unconscious,  next  unmoral,  finally  unknow- 
able. We  shall  notice  how,  in  spite  of  some  wistful  claims 
to  have  *  already  apprehended '  unity,  the  past  century 
has  seen  the  growing  separateness  oi  spheres  and  aspects, 
of  special  departments,  not  merely  of  life,  moral, 
religious,  political,  but  in  the  realm  of  pure  Science  and 
ascertained  fact  itself;  how  the  search  for  a  single 
fount  of  Being,  at  once  the  final  object  of  proof,  the 
initial  assumption  of  each  worshipper  or  discoverer,  has 
been  baffled  by  the  complexity  of  interest,  by  the 
divergence  of  the  pilgrims  down  the  avenues  of  inquiry, 
further  and  further  (as  it  may  sometimes  seem)  from  each 


io6    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

other,  and  from  a  common  centre.  And  we  shall  be 
prepared  for  the  result  already  foreshadowed :  that  the 
Christian  faith,  precisely  because  it  will  recognise  and 
embrace  every  sphere  with  a  universal  hope,  can  alone 
answer,  I  will  not  say  the  needs  of  our  heart,  and  the 
cry  of  the  distressed,  but  the  fundamental  demands  of 
human  Reason  and  thought  itself,  when  it  is  content 
to  give  up  grasping  shadows  and  confess  its  limits ;  and 
this  not  in  despair,  but  with  modest  gladness. 


LECTURE    VII 

AGNOSTICISM  :    ARBITRARY  STATE, 
UNKNOWABLE  GOD 


*Ayvu<rT(p  QeQ. — Acts  xvii.  23, 
"Is  there  knowledge  with  the  most  High  .?" 

§  I.  Ontology,  the  great  object  of  search  throughout  the  nine- 
teenth century :  province  after  province  wrested  from  theology 
and  claimed  for  unprejudiced  inquiry  into  fact :  a  minimum  of 
prerogative  still  conceded  in  Deism,  or  the  religion  of  Nature : 
revival  of  Platonic  immanence,  God  not  distant  but  ubiquitous  : 
"  Jupiter  est  quodcunque  vides,  quodcunque  moveris " :  this 
attempted  identification  {Kara  (j^variVf  Kara  \6yov),  always  strained  : 
continuous  protest  from  the  ethical  side. 

§  2.  Kant  and  Fichte  the  last  to  approach  life  and  its  problem 
from  the  moral  point  of  view  :  impossible  to  resume  that  attitude  : 
men  will  not  express  truth  in  terms  of  necessity  and  restriction 
(duty,  law,  obligation) :  morality  and  reason  play  an  insignificant 
part  in  the  Universe :  in  the  Neo  -  Kantian  mythology,  man 
banished  as  a  moral  agent :  and  even  Fichte's  '  moral  order '  a 
mere  pious  postulate  which  stubborn  facts  did  not  respect. 

§  3.  Warm  alliance  of  Idealist  and  Naturalist :  pantheism  not 
to  be  distinguished  from  positivism  :  to  some  minds  this  glozing 
of  blind  mechanism  by  pious  terminology  will  always  seem  ultimate 
truth :  we  would  only  point  out  that  this  qualifying  of  the  given 
as  the  good  or  as  the  '  rational '  is  purely  an  act  of  Faith. 

§  4.  Objection  :  "is  not  Hegelianism  a  vindication  of  Reason?" 
It  cannot  be  distinguished  from  Force  or  the  Unconscious :  it 
soon  becomes  mere  name  to  cover  a  process  of  development, 
without  relation  to  human  mind  or  conscience,  only  intelligible  in 
its  series,  not  in  its  issue,  or  its  purport. 

§5.  Development  of  the  Neo-Kantians  :   the  *thing-in-itself' : 

the  Romantic  era  :  a  mystical  faculty  apprehends  an  imaginary 

Unity  for  which  ordinary  reason  is  insufficient :  end  of  era  of 

Revolution  and  individual  protest :  stages  of  declension  towards 

107 


io8    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

Agnosticism  :  the  Real  =  the  ethical  (Fichte)=the  rational  (Hegel) 
=the  'given  and  irrational'  (later  induction  of  Science  and 
Pessimism). 

§  6.  Fichte  already  begins  to  disparage  or  to  despair  of  the 
individual :  his  '  moral  order '  (as  seen  above)  a  venture  of  Faith, 
a  pious  hope :  it  cannot  convince  the  unbiassed  spectator  of  the 
world  as  it  is  :  sum  of  imperfect  moments  cannot  be  perfection. 

§  7.  This  '  religiosity '  but  a  momentary  halt :  Schelling  transfers 
interest  to  Nature  away  from  Man  :  his  Absolute  a  revival  of 
Behmen's  doctrine,  striving  of  the  Will-to-live  :  he  is  in  truer 
sympathy  with  the  downward  grade  of  modern  thought  than  Hegel. 

§  8.  Hegel  with  genial  and  poetic  temperament  arrests  for  a 
time  the  disillusion  :  joyous  process  of  the  Absolute  from  un- 
conscious to  self-conscious  Reason  :  his  teaching  embellished  with 
religious  phrase  and  symbol  but  incompatible  with  orthodoxy. 

§  9.  Complete  '  subjection '  of  individual  to  universal  Reason 
(in  history,  State,  morality) :  conscious  reason  appears  late  on 
the  scene  :  it  is  subordinate,  secondary  and  an  '  epiphenomenon ' : 
Hegel  occasionally  sensible  of  the  radical  '  otherness '  of  Thought 
and  Things. 

§  10.  In  Hegel  all  subsequent  developments  are  latent :  he 
confesses  that  relapse  into  faith  is  necessary  ;  violent  attacks  on 
the  Cosmic  process  from  the  side  of  Eudsemonism  and  of  Moralism. 

§  II.  Comte  and  the  aristocratic  revival  :  the  State  to  be 
mechanically  moralised  r  strange  and  illogical  compromise  ot 
English  Puritanism :  prevalent  contempt  for  the  democratic 
principle  :  paralysis  of  reform  :  discouragement  of  philanthropy  : 
what  is  to  be  the  attitude  and  function  of  the  Christian  Church  ? 

§  I.  Underneath  all  the  varied  and  feverish  forms 
of  inquiry  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  dominant 
interest,  if  not  any  certain  success,  has  lain  within 
the  province  of  Ontology.  Whatever  the  special  field 
of  search,  the  initial  assumption  is  clear  and  common 
to  all  that  the  world-order  can  be  known,  is  therefore 
in  a  sense  a  Unity ;  and  the  final  goal  is  also  well  in 
sight,  so  to  adapt  the  given  study  and  its  results  to 
the  whole  region  of  experience  that,  in  the  end,  the 
Unity  anticipated  and  presupposed  may  become  an 
achieved  and  proved  truth.  What  is  the  ground  and 
cause  of  mental  and  physical  life  ?  What  is  the  single 
root  of  being  whence  both  issue?     What  is  the  One 


AGNOSTICISM  109 

which  separates  into  the  manifold  of  existence  ?  After 
the  rupture  of  the  Catholic  Ideal,  the  hierarchic  con- 
tinuity of  all  being  under  the  Sovereignty  of  God, 
province  after  province  was  wrested  from  the  theological 
domain,  claimed  for  free  inquiry,  and  determined  no 
longer  according  to  a  theory  of  values^  but  from  the 
certainty  of  facts.  It  was  true  that  the  conception 
dominant  in  the  mediaeval  age  was  Aristotelian  tran- 
scendence ;  yet  by  His  angels,  pontiffs,  and  priests  He 
was  never  *  far  from  each  one/  The  Platonic  tradition 
of  the  closer  intimacy  (as  it  was  thought)  of  immanence, 
had  been  preserved  unbroken,  and  though  severely 
repressed  had  never  lacked  supporters,  from  Erigena 
and  Amalric  to  Eckhart  and  the  Theologia  Germanica. 
The  Divine  intervention  receded  ever  further  from 
reality.  As  in  political  reform,  the  prerogative  suffered 
successive  limitation ;  district  after  district  proclaimed 
its  complete  autonomy;  and  the  minimum  jealously 
conceded  in  the  Religion  of  Nature  and  of  Reason 
allowed  a  first  impulse  to  an  almost  independent 
creation  as  a  scientific  postulate,  and  a  final  judgment 
upon  the  behaviour  of  men  as  a  practical  safeguard.  \ 
But  the  Platonic  conception  had  been  slowly  gathering  I 
in  volume  and  intensity.  God  was  neither  Creator  1 
nor  Judge ;  but  rather  substance  and  sustainer  of  the  I 
world  in  its  harmonious  interrelation  ;  inspirer  of  our  1 
highest  thoughts,  indeed  our  very  self.  But  the  keen 
and  striking  antithesis  between  the  outward  and  the 
inner,  whether  in  moral  life  or  in  the  problems  of 
Epistemology,  cannot  be  so  easily  annulled.  The 
Stoics,  and  perhaps  the  Sophists,  had  maintained  that 
life  KuroL  (pOfftv  was  life  zocroi  Xoyov, — a  clear  correspond- 
ence between  thought  and  things,  which  often  demanded 
a  very  artificial  combination  of  spheres  always  too  ready 
to  fall  violently  apart.  (And  the  Sophists,  followed  by 
Rousseau,  had  added  the  significant  appendix  :  that  the 
life  xocrd  vofiov  contradicted  both.)     It  is  clear  that  what 


no    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

suffered  in  this  new  interest,  in  the  novel  conception  of 
God,  was  the  ethical  side  of  life.  Wherever  the  ethical 
spirit  has  come  forward  into  the  chief  place,  the  distrust 
of  Nature,  and  antagonism  to  her  methods,  becomes 
our  conscious  or  deliberate  rule  of  procedure.  What 
has  been  the  course  of  development  in  this  new  theory  ? 
By  what  successive  stages  have  thinkers  been  led  to 
the  modern  views  of  ontology,  as  to  the  character  of 
the  ultimate  real,  the  constitution  and  the  purpose  of 
the  unending  process?  For  teleology,  with  its  train 
of  ideas  and  terms,  penetrates  unsuspected  into  the 
most  professedly  scientific  and  unbiassed  treatment ; 
and  the  judgment  of  values  cannot  be  withheld  or 
suspended,  after  a  patient  scrutiny  of  facts  (Darwin, 
Hoffding,  II.  441). 

§  2.  There  have  been  two  tendencies  in  Modern 
Thought  answering  naturally  to  the  two  sides  of  the 
eternal  contrast,  mind  and  matter,  thought  and  things, 
ego  and  non-ego.  In  the  search  for  a  third  principle 
which  should  explain  the  origin  of  this  dualism.  Idealist 
and  Naturalist  combined ;  or  rather,  shall  we  say  they 
pursued  their  independent  study  until  that  wider 
association  of  reflection  and  experience,  that  publicity 
and  easy  interchange  of  ideas  which,  with  growing 
r  independence  of  special  spheres,  marks  our  time, 
brought  them  at  last  from  opposite  poles,  not  merely 
within  hailing  distance,  but  even  to  a  common  ground 
of  agreement.  Kant  and  Fichte  were  the  last  to 
approach  life  and  its  origin  from  the  purely  human 
standpoint  of  morality  and  the  text  of  'Duty.'  No 
philosopher  since  has  attempted  to  do  so ;  perhaps  none 
can  ever  resume  the  task.  (Duty,  law,  and  obligation 
are  ungracious  and  unfamiliar  terms  to  which  the  present 
age  listens  with  ill-disguised  unease;  and  it  would 
certainly  be  strange  if  the  ultimate  expression  to 
denote  the  *  fine  flower '  of  cosmic  development,  of 
human  perfection,  were  to  be   always    derived    from 


AGNOSTICISM  III 

determinism  and  the  realm  of  necessity;  or — in  a 
somewhat  higher  sphere  of  social  intercourse — the 
grudging  performance  of  one  side  of  a  contract, — un- 
pleasant but  indispensable  condition  to  some  future 
advantage.)  This  impatience  of  what,  after  all,  plays 
(like  Reason  itself)  an  insignificant  part  on  the  great 
stage  of  existence,  led,  in  the  successors  of  Kant  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  to  a  grandeur  of  conceptual 
mythology;  from  which  man,  in  his  strict  sense,  as 
moral  agent  was  banished,  and  man  in  a  new  role  as 
a  mode  of  the  Universal  Being,  as  a  'organ  of  the 
Universal  Reason,'  was  invited  to  enjoy  the  spectacle 
of  all  Time  and  all  existence, — or  rather,  to  rise  above 
both.  To  Kant,  God  is  still  demanded  by  the  moral 
sense  and  the  needs  of  practical  life,  not  so  much  as 
the  Sovereign  author  of  law,  but  as  its  guarantor;  as 
the  restorer  of  that  due  balance  of  merit  and  recom- 
pense which  in  this  world  is  never  seen  in  equilibrium. 
(He  never  answers  Hume's  pertinent  inquiry,  Why 
should  we  imagine,  as  there  is  no  correspondence  here 
between  justice  and  happiness,  that  there  is  another 
world  where  such  inequality  is  redressed  ?)  To  Fichte, 
again,  whose  last  word  is  duty,  God  is  nothing  but 
the  moral  order  of  the  Universe :  "  I  abhor,"  he  says, "  all 
religious  conceptions  which  personify  God,  and  regard 
them  as  unworthy  of  a  reasonable  being."  Fichte,  with 
his  intensely  mystical  temperament,  is  more  fortunate 
than  most  critical  inquirers  into  Nature  as  a  whole,  or 
the  course  of  History.  It  certainly  is  not  from  the 
Science  of  things  or  men  that  we  get  unmistakable 
traces  of  power,  wisdom,  and  goodness.  In  depersonal- 
ising God,  Fichte's  moral  order,  bound  up  with  that 
limited  acquaintance  with  the  scope  of  history  we 
noticed  before,  disappears  as  the  vista  lengthens  on 
each  side  into  infinity, — disappears,  too,  on  a  more' 
concrete  experience  of  human  life  and  of  the  human 
heart.      It  is  clear  that  the  *  moral  order'  bears   no 


112    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

relation  to  the  usual  implications  of  morality.  Like 
Spinoza's  God,  which  might  with  greater  candour  be 
styled  Nature,  this  '  order '  which  we  readily  grant  (as 
fact  of  experience,  as  necessity  of  thought),  might  very 
well  drop  its  superfluous  predicate.  His  successors 
will  not  trouble  much  about  it ;  and  under  their  treat- 
ment, while  the  conception  of  Being  gains  in  grandeur 
and  universality,  it  drifts  away  imperceptibly  but  steadily 
out  of  relation  to  the  average  life  of  man. 

§  3.  We  are  now  entering  upon  that  brilliant  period 
of  philosophy  in  which  the  purely  Idealist  and  the 
purely  Naturalist  view  meet,  not  in  a  compromise  but 
in  an  identity  of  opinion.  The  former  releases  itself 
from  any  undue  pettiness  and  constraint,  gets  free  first 
of  geocentric  narrowness,  then  of  anthropomorphic 
prejudice:  Source  of  Being  must  be  above  any  sym- 
pathy with  a  mere  stage  in  development,  for  it  embraces 
all  with  equal  tolerance ;  it  is  a  parent  without  favourit- 
ism, and  the  last  remnant  of  austere  moralism  vanishes. 
And  from  the  other  side,  the  Scientific  or  pure  Material- 
ism gradually  transforms  crude  matter  into  force,  force 
into  will,  will  into  an  ambiguous  amalgam  called  mind- 
stuff.  And  as  they  become  more  and  more  *  animistic,' 
more  intent  on  explaining  the  outward  by  the  facts 
of  inward  experience,  or  datum;  so  they  meet  and 
fraternise  with  the  opposing  force ;  and  pure  Idealism 
and  pure  Naturalism  coalesce  in  the  sphere  beyond 
and  embracing  both, — the  Cusan's  *  harmony  of  con- 
tradictories,' place  of  Indifference,  the  Absolute.  It 
is  no  novelty  to  accuse  modern  Hegelianism  and 
ancient  Stoicism  of  being  indistinguishable  from  pure 
Naturalism ;  of  employing  terms  out  of  their  current 
usage,  rather  from  habit  and  a  desire  for  comprehension 
than  from  any  conscious  wish  to  deceive.  But  there 
will  always  remain  a  class  of  mind  to  whom  this 
via  media^  this  compromise  between  spiritualism 
and    mechanism,   appears    the    last    term    of   human 


AGNOSTICISM  1 13 

wisdom,  as  it  attempts  to  adapt  itself  to  a  world 
which  it  does  not  wholly  create,  which,  as  Hegel  him- 
self seems  to  confess,  contains  in  the  end  an  indigest- 
ible residuum.  The  tendency  to  save  the  comfort  of 
religious  terms  without  their  meaning  or  object  will 
always  satisfy  many  who  cannot  bear  to  lose  at  one 
blow  the  traditional  scheme  of  life ;  it  will  arise  anew 
from  time  to  time,  and  chiefly  in  those  periods  of 
eager  practical  search  in  the  material  universe,  which 
convince  the  earnest  thinker  that  he  is  but  a  pilgrim 
and  sojourner  in  an  alien  world ;  it  mitigates  the  horror 
of  determinism,  and,  if  it  bring  some  vague  solace 
to  those  who  are  able  to  entertain  it,  it  fulfils  that 
standard  of  usefulness  which  is  the  sole  ultimate  test  of 
creeds,  as  of  institutions.  Founded  securely  on  faith 
and  sentiment  (personal  but  incommunicable),  it  can 
resolutely  close  the  ears  to  outward  remonstrance,  on 
the  part  of  pure  Positivism  or  moralistic  Religion.  It 
is  no  purpose  of  the  apologist  to  upset  the  faith  of 
any;  and  I  would  here  only  point  out  that  this  same 
attempt  to  qualify  the  given,  as  good  or  as  beautiful, 
is  an  act  not  of  reason^  but  of  belief  (perhaps,  a  sug- 
gestion of  temperament,  or  a  cry  of  the  heart) ;  and 
takes  its  place  among  other  voices  of  defiance  or 
protest  against  the  stubborn  crassness  of  the  outward 
order, — weak  perhaps  only  in  this,  that  it  cannot  inspire 
courage  and  conviction  to  face  the  manifold  and  help 
to  make  it  one,  because  by  its  initial  axiom  it  has 
already  pronounced  it  to  be  one  and  perfect. 

§  4.  But,  to  some,  this  accusation  of  tacit  agreement 
with  the  Naturalist  must  seem  a  profane  libel  on  philo- 
sophers, or  a  mere  academic  paradox.  "  Is  not,"  this  is  its 
song,  "  the  whole  system  of  Hegel  a  long  and  elaborate 
vindication  of  Reason, — a  successful  attempt  to  reunite 
mechanism  and  design  ?  Is  not  the  master  of  what  is 
best  and  highest  in  modern  thought  the  only  teacher 
able  to  answer  the  pressing  claims  of  exact  science  and 
8 


114    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

pure  Naturalism?     Does  he  not  take  man's  differentia 
as  intelligence,  and  show  that  the  universe  corresponds 
to  its  categories  so  exactly  that  his  chief  text  may  be 
written  thus  :  the  Real  is  the  Rational  ?  "     It  will  be  my 
place  to  reply;  that  it  is  difficult  to  recognise  in  this 
system  any  firm  support,  I  do  not  say  for  the  moral, 
but  even  for  the  intellectual  life ;  that  the  converse  of  the 
text  is  the  truer  form,  that  *  the  Rational  is  the  real ' ; 
and  that  this  very  use  of  the  term  '  Reason '  is  the  most 
signal  instance  of  the  fatal  ambiguity  of  the  new  scholastic 
in   the  use  of  words.     *  Reason,'   in   a  word,   bears   a 
meaning  which   has   scarcely   a    faint   resemblance   to 
current  usage.     The   title   itself  was  partly  a   heritage 
from  the  eighteenth  century ;  partly  the  choice  was  due 
to   the   buoyant   confidence   of    Hegel   himself    in   his 
cardinal  belief,  things  must  agree  to  thought^  and  logic 
is  ontology.      But  he  was  misled  by  their  association, 
or  swayed  by  a   very  natural  bias.      He  might  have 
styled  it  with  greater  correctness,  *  Force,'  or  the  '  Uncon- 
scious,' the  *  Will-to-live.'     Divorced  from  moral  purpose, 
cosmic  completeness  is  not  far  from  the  *  unknowable.' 
He   could    not   rid   himself,   as    child   of  his    time,  of 
such  joyful  anticipation  of  final  sympathy  with  things. 
He  never  lost  the  *  animistic '  prejudice  (if  I  may  use  the 
term)  that  at  the  back  of  phenomena  lay,  not  merely 
something  analogous  to  man,  but  his  veritable  self     His 
successors  were  less  scrupulous.     They  would  not  use 
well-known  words  in  an  unusual  or  unfamiliar  sense. 
Whether  starting  from  his  School  or  from  a  cool  empirical 
interest  in  Nature,  men  had  learnt  one  Kantian  lesson, 
and  forgotten  another  :  they  read  themselves  into  Nature 
and  disposed  of  mechanism  ;  but  they  forgot  that  man's 
essence  is  nat  thought  but  action.    They  still  employed 
language  that  might  apply  also  to  man  and  his  inner 
state  of  passive  acquiescence  in  the  inrushing  tide  of  truth  ; 
but  they  deprived  it  of  all  connection  with  what  we  term 
distinctively  human.     The  new   creed   recognises  only 


AGNOSTICISM  115 

the    elect   favourites   of  an    intellectual,   that   is,   of  a 
mystical,  aristocracy. 

§  5.  The  starting-point  of  the  later  Kantian  is  of  course 
the  *  thing-in-itself.'  Kant,  who  thus  recalled  a  limited 
Realism,  had  thrown  out  the  important  and  pregnant 
suggestion  that  there  might  be  an  affinity  between  the 
unknown  behind  phenomena  and  the  unknown  in  our- 
selves ;  but  at  the  same  time  he  issues  the  caution,  that 
this  harmony,  Reason  (with  its  insistent  dualism)  would 
be  unable  to  formulate.  This  was  a  challenge  to  his 
successors.  They  could  not  consent  to  leave  anything 
outside  the  sphere  of  human  cognisance.  They  were 
impatient  of  limit  and  supremely  hopeful  of  success. 
The  critical  philosophy  had  in  truth  enlarged,  while  it 
seemed  to  restrict,  the  scope  and  accuracy  of  intellect. 
The  unknown  will  be  first  taken  up  into  the  *  ego ' ; 
and  next,  the  two  will  be  set  together  as  inseparable 
twins  of  one  beneficent  parent.  Three  thoughts 
suggested  rather  than  elaborated  by  the  master,  seem  to 
have  guided  later  development.  In  them  we  may  trace 
the  essential  features  of  modern  thought :  (i)  this  obscure 
yet  conceivable  affinity  between  subject  and  object  in 
the  deepest  ground  of  the  nature  of  each;  (2)  the 
'immanent  teleology,'  which  in  the  *  Critique __of 
Judgment '  was  already  preparing  to  supplant  Creation 
by  Evolution,  and  to  affirm  the  possibility  of  purpose 
without  conscious  Thought;  (3)  some  dim  hints  as  to 
an  immediate  intuition  of  this  Identity,  which  from  the 
least  mystical  of  modern  thinkers  heralded  the  new 
tendency  to  seek  Truth,  with  a  higher  but  less  conscious 
faculty  than  that  of  Intelligence.  The  Romantic  era 
opens,  full  of  vague  yearnings  amid  all  its  triumphant 
formalism.  The  Age  of  Reason  closes,  with  its  demand 
for  transparent  clearness.  Than  Reason  itself,  nescioquid 
majus  nascitur.  Armed  with  these  hints,  and  disregard- 
ing the  caution  as  to  'forbidden  fruit'  which  equally 
formed  a  part  of  his  teacHin^lEe  new  philosophers 


/, 


ii6    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


plunge  into  the  dangers  of  the  enchanted  forest  of 
the  Absolute.  Criticism,  the  epoch  of  revolution,  of 
individual  protest,  of  the  rights  of  man,  is  over  and  out 
of  favour:  the  constructive  metaphysicians  belong  to 
the  age  of  the  Restoration.  The  world  is  recognised  as 
*  all  our  own ' :  it  belongs  entirely  to  the  thinking  mind  : 
the  metaphysical  and  the  ethical  principle  are  one.  But 
what  of  the  restraint,  the  limit,  the  Tgpa^,  *  anstoss,'  which 
experience  shows  us  stands  in  our  way,  the  stubborn 
material  of  the  real,  which  so  often  seems  to  conflict  with 
our  wilful  impulse  or  inner  ideality?  This  too  is  all 
our  own  act.  Freedom  is  no  magical  or  original  birth- 
gift  :  it  must  be  slowly  won  by  the  painful  toil  of 
overcoming  opposition.  Development  through  tran- 
scending and  reconciling  contraries ;  this  is  the  new 
text.  "  This  then,"  cries  the  awakened  Reason,  "  is  the 
task  I  set  myself  when  in  the  night  of  the  UNCONSCIOUS 
I  resolved  to  return  to  my  home  in  tranquil  self- 
possession  only  after  labour  well  and  loyally  performed." 
Here,  in  the  Fichtian  system  (or  rather  mythology)  of 
Being,  we  mark  the  entry  of  the  unconscious  and  involun- 
tary, as  the  source  of  life  in  restless  striving.  Reflection, 
Reason,  Philosophy  itself,  is  a  pale  copy  of  what  is, 
after  all,  already  ^iveu  (datum)  when  Thought  becomes 
conscious.  The  Real,  said  Fichte,  is  the  Ethical.  The 
Real,  said  Hegel,  is  the  Rational.  The  Real,  declared 
the  metaphysical  pessimist  and  the  empiric  alike,  is  the 
work  of  a  blind  or  malignant  force,  which  man  must 
annihilate^  or  reverse.  Such,  as  we  have  already  seen,  are 
the  stages  of  modern  thought. 

§  6.  Kant's  first  follower  lived  too  near  to  the  earnest 
individual  protest  and  hopeful  striving  of  the  Revolution 
to  abandon  completely  the  ethical  standpoint.  But  even 
in  this  devout  and  serious  soul,  it  was  already  threatening 
to  collapse.  Not  yet  do  we  pass  into  the  serene  heights 
of  pure  thought-reconstruction,  artistic  reverie,  religious 
symbolism,  and  its  heavy  price  for  all  but  the  elect.  State- 


AGNOSTICISM  117 

supremacy,  which  marks  the  later  intellectualism.     But 
he  has  already  begun  to  despair  of  the  INDIVIDUAL! 
Freedom,  as  self-comprehension,  cannot  be  attained  by 
the  single  striver,  only  by  the  whole  process.     He  turns, 
to  our  disappointment,  from  individuality  to  Pantheism  ! 
interest  is  transferred  from  the  many,  rari  nantes  in 
gurgite  vasto,  to  the  human  race,  conceived  by  a  generous 
fiction  as  the  subject  of  evolution  and  development ;  and 
we  are  confronted  by  that  unanswerable  dilemma,  where 
is  the  worth  of  a  heap,  if  the  grains  are  valueless ;  of  an 
evolution,  itself  unconscious,  where   at  no  given  point 
emerges   the   full   delight   of  a  realised   end  ?     "  It    is 
altogether   absurd,"  says   Hartmann,  with   an   asperity     \ 
which  is  almost  justified,  "  to  conceive  evolution  as  end-      \ 
in-itself  and  to   ascribe  to   it  an    absolute  value.     For 
evolution  is  still  only  the  sum  of  its  moments ;  and  if 
the  several  moments   are  not  only  worthless  but  even       i 
objectionable, — so  too  is  their  sum,  the  process."     "  We  \  /  1 
cannot  get  the  Absolute,  the  perfect  fruition  of  experience,   \    \j 
by   adding  together   any   number  of    imperfect,   finite 
experiences"    (Leighton,   Modern    Conceptions  of   Gody 
136).     Still    Fichte  clings,   with    the   passionate    con- 
viction of  a  Faith  which  defies  evidence,  to  the  notion 
of  a    *  Moral   order'  gradually  realising   itself  in   the 
world. 

§  7.  This  is  not  philosophy,  but  religion  ;  a  pious 
hope,  not  a  proved  achievement,  a  known  experience ;  it 
is  a  moment's  halting-ground  between  the  ethical  and 
that  later  view  of  life  which,  according  to  the  temperament 
of  each,  falls  below  into  the  pure  mechanism  of  natural 
causes,  or  rises  above  to  artistic  contemplation  and 
indifference.  For  in  Schelling,  man  gives  place  to  nature^ 
as  a  real,  nay,  as  a  rival,  though  a  complement  of  self ;  and 
the  objective  is  reinstated.  "  We  do  not  produce"  said 
this  reviving  Realism,  "  we  only  REPRODUCE."  Yet  are 
the  two  philosophies  of  nature  and  of  mind  parallel  and 
in  completest  agreement :  they  are  twins  of  a  common 


ii8    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

father.  For  the  ego  (once  absolute)  subsides  into  a 
subordinate  r61e.  "  Then  shall  the  Son  also  Himself  be 
subject  unto  Him  that  put  all  things  under  Him,  that 
God  may  be  all  in  all."  He  denies  alike  the  tenet  of 
sensationalism y  that  the  *  NON-EGO '  produces  the  *  EGO ' ;  of 
subjective  idealism^  that  the  *  EGO '  creates  the  *  NON-EGO.' 
Mechanism  and  teleology  are  reconciled  in  a  higher 
sphere;  the  dual  tendency  of  the  Positive  and  the 
Romantic  elements  in  human  nature.  The  Higher 
Principle,  which  unites  and  embraces  them,  is  neither 
the  one  nor  the  other ;  it  is  Cusa's  synthesis  of  contra- 
dictions; or  the  absolute  ground  is  pure  indifference. 
Mind  is  gradually,  as  it  were,  extricated  from  the  mass ; 
and,  as  Intellect,  interacts  with  Will ;  their  antagonism 
makes  human  history,  the  conflict  of  THOUGHT  and 
reflection  with  BLIND  NATURAL  impulse, — "the  one 
the  drag,  the  other  the  motive  power"  (Schiller). 
How  can  this  dualism  be  overcome  and  peace  secured  ? 
not  by  the  THEORETIC  or  the  PRACTICAL  Reason.  We 
can  reach  the  Highest,  as  Kant  seemed  to  intimate, 
only  by  getting  back  into  the  impersonal,  and  by  laying 
aside  the  limits  of  individual  reflection,  by  opening  the 
vacant  mind  with  the  mystics  of  all  time  to  the  flow 
of  Truth.  Art,  as  immediate,  is  greater  than  philosophy. 
There  we  transcend  the  dualism  of  reflection,  and  rise 
past  the  finite.  But  what  is  the  Absolute,  both  source 
of  our  being  and  knowledge  and  goal  of  our  striving? 
From  the  ground  of  blank  indifference  (of  which  Hegel  dis- 
approved) the  Absolute  in  Schelling's  later  development 
tended  more  and  more  to  qualify  as  '  will  striving-to- 
bel  or  at  least  to  contain  this  as  primal  and  indispensable 
potency.  Schelling  {On  Essence  of  Human  Freedom, 
1809) :  "  There  is  in  the  last  and  highest  resort  no  other 
being  at  all  than  Volition.  Volition  is  original  Being, 
and  to  this  alone  are  adapted  all  its  predicates — ground- 
lessness, eternity,  independence  of  time,  self-affirmation. 
All  philosophy  only  aims  at  finding  this  highest  term." 


AGNOSTICISM  119 

{Scheme  of  Anthropology)  "Will  is  the  proper  spiritual 
substance  of  man,  ground  of  everything,  original 
producer  of  matter,  the  only  thing  in  man,  the  cause  of 
being."  Whereas  the  negative  coercive  role  of  the 
Understanding,  he  expresses  thus :  "  It  is  the  not-creating, 
but  regulating  ( =  ro  Tgpa?),  limiting,  giving  measure  to 
the  infinite  boundless  Will"  (cf.  v.).  Before  God  can 
become  a  person,  there  is  the  *  Dark  Spot '  of  Behmen's 
theosophy,  which  must  be  comprehended  and  reconciled. 
It  is  clear  that  while  Hegel  ("  who  would  deal,"  says 
Stirling,  "  with  the  facts  of  existence,  not  with  the  fictions 
of  conceptions,"  ii.  91),  with  his  vivid  interest  in  concrete 
things,  maintains  his  system  at  the  higher  level  of  his 
original  optimism,  Schelling,  in  far  truer  sympathy  with 
the  downward  grade  of  modern  thought,  relapsed  in  the 
gnostical  symbolism  of  his  later  manner  into  a  pessimistic 
analysis  of  the  world-process,  indiscernible  from  the 
definite  Gnosticism  of  later  writers. 

§  8.  To  the  ordinary  man  the  key  to  the  philosophy 
of  Hegel  is  his  hatred  of  abstractions,  his  love  of  the 
concrete,  his  confidence  in  human  faculties.  "The 
Hidden  Secret  of  the  Universe,"  he  says,  "  is  powerless 
to  resist  the  might  of  thought !  It  must  unclose  itself 
before  it,  revealing  to  sight  and  bringing  to  enjoyment 
its  riches  and  its  depths."  He  drags  down  the  Absolute 
from  its  cold  transcendence  and  indifference  into  the 
process  of  development.  To  him,  the  Absolute  is  the 
relative.  It  is  not  something  that  surpasses  human 
understanding ;  it  is  supremely  knowable.  It  had  been 
maintained,  as  we  saw,  that  the  Radix  of  Nature  and  of 
Mind  was  something  which  included  both^  and  itself  was 
neither.  This  suggestion  to  pure  mysticism,  always  the 
abandonment  of  the  known  for  the  unknown,  was 
supremely  distasteful  to  Hegel.  The  Absolute,  not 
merely  held  together  in  colourless  and  neutral  unity, 
but  itself  was.  Nature  and  Spirit.  Evolution  is  from 
unconscious  Reason  to  self-comprehending  Reason,  by 


120    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

the  law  or  formula  of  the  three  stages  (which  was  the 
common  property  of  all  Kant's  successors).  The  goal 
is  self-consciousness  and  freedom  therein.  There  is  a 
perfect  correspondence  between  what  is  ;cara  (pbaiv  and 
«ara  \oyov.  Reason  regards  with  complacence  and 
acquiescence  the  unconscious  work  of  her  dream-trance. 
Reason  fully  knows,  and  cordially  endorses  the  Real. 
Thus  Logic  is  ontology ;  and  the  Categories  assume  for 
him  a  far  greater  significance  than  for  Kant.  These 
become  the  counterparts  of  the  Platonic  Ideas,  active 
and  creative  forces  in  THINGS  as  well  as  necessary  forms 
of  thought  in  our  own  mind.  His  consistent  use  of  the 
term  Reason  must  not  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  he 
means  unconscious  impulse  which  only  in  man  com- 
prehends itself.  He  expressly  cautions  us  against 
supposing  that  for  Thought  there  need  be  a  Thinker. 
His  acute  and  yet  orthodox  commentator,  Dr.  Stirling, 
remarks :  "  We  cannot  conceive  of  Thought  (ii.  80) 
as  in  the  first  instance  just  in  the  air.  .  .  .  Thought 
implies  a  thinking  subject.  It  may  be  that  this  subject 
is  not  at  first  in  gvrgXg%g/a,  or  even  in  svepynu  or  [Jijop(p7] ; 
it  may  be,"  he  adds  significantly,  "  that  at  first  it  is  only 
in  the  stage  of  Ivvafjutg,  or  that  it  only  isy  potentially." 
Nowhere,  except  perhaps  in  the  Introduction  to  the 
Philosophy  of  History^  does  Hegel  suggest  an  answer  to 
the  doubts  which  must  beset  the  student,  as  to  the  real 
value  of  his  terminologic  currency.  Hartmann  seems  to 
complain  of  his  want  of  candour.  It  would  be  pre- 
sumptuous to  attempt  to  decide  the  great  debated 
problems  of  the  Hegelians  of  the  Right  and  Left.  But 
the  general  impression  is  in  favour  of  the  latter  inter- 
pretation. The  Unconscious  and  impersonal  only  attains 
self-knowledge  in  the  human  race ;  and  these,  collect- 
ively, are  the  Absolute  so  far  as  He  can  be  said  to  be 
aware  of  Himself.  Can  we  doubt  that,  in  the  last  resort, 
Hegel's  Reason  is  a  blind  impulse  to  life  that  is  some- 
how ordered   and  permeated  by  an   unconscious   and 


AGNOSTICISM  I2l 

immanent  teleology?  Need  we  hesitate  to  attribute 
such  belief  to  a  speculator  in  the  vagueness  of  the 
Romantic  era,  when  we  find  this  language  in  the  post- 
humous work  of  one  of  the  clearest  of  English  thinkers  ? 
(H.  Sid^icky  Philosopkyjts  Scope  and  Relations  ^  243, 244) 
"  I  am  conscious  of  requiring  for  rational  conduct  such  a 
postulate,  viz.,  Moral  order.  This  leads  on  to  the  con- 
nection of  Theism  and  optimism  (so  far  as  a  Moral 
order  goes).  Neither  in  my  opinion  involves  the  other. 
We  may  believe  in  Moral  order — *  the  power  not  our- 
selves that  makes  for  Righteousness ' — without  connect- 
ing it  with  Personality.  This,"  he  adds,  "  is  generally 
admitted."  It  is  perhaps  with  a  view  of  calling  attention 
to  the  implications,  to  the  historical  consequences  of  this 
alogical  compromise,  that  I  have  ventured  to  deliver 
these  lectures.  The  substance  of  my  contention,  as  of 
every  earnest  Christian  and  every  genuine  philosopher, 
is  to  assure  the  one  known  reality  of  its  sovereign 
importance  and  value,  not  merely  as  a  bye-product,  an 
accidental  epiphenomenon,  on  the  surface  of  an  unend- 
ing evolution,  but  as  the  supreme  centre  of  life,  and 
being,  and  thought. 

§  9.  The  active  Reason  which  creates  must  be  pro- 
nounced unconscious ;  and  the  conception  of  design 
merely  implies  order  and  interrelation.  The  Absolute 
is  relative ;  God  is  not  an  ideal,  but  the  real,  the  actual. 
Motion,  becoming  development  through  overcoming  anti- 
thesis,— this  is  just  the  concrete  course;  Consciousness 
and  freedom  are  the  goal  where  self-expansion  gives  way 
to  self-concentration,  and  the  reign  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
at  hand ;  we  might  almost  say,  the  unholy  impulse  of  the 
Will-to-live  has  been  for  ever  checked.  This  goal,  as  to 
Fichte,  is  out  of  reach  of  the  individual',  it  is  for  the 
Race  alone.  History  becomes  the  absorbing  study  ;  and 
the  historical  movement  of  our  time  owes  largely  to 
Hegel,  though  it  has  had  to  correct  the  premature 
generalising  of  the  philosopher  by  careful  and  unbiassed 


122    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

inquiry.  As  in  knowledge,  he  would  bid  the  individual 
be  the  silent  and  passive  recipient  of  the  fulness  of  the 
Dialectical  process,  of  itself  unfolding  truth  within — so 
to  the  ordinary  man  the  State  prescribes  and  directs, 
keeping  conceit  and  caprice'  in  check  !  The  government 
rests  with  the  world  of  officials.  Was  he  not  indignant 
with  such  as  believed  themselves  personally  endowed 
with  more  reason  than  had  developed  in  the  State 
historically  ?  Does  he  not  come  near  those  who  suppose 
the  ordering  of  rights  to  be  the  work  of  history,  exalted 
far  above  all  individual  will  and  reflection  ?  But  for  the 
gifted  there  is  another  sphere.  In  the  political  life 
mind  cannot  find  its  highest  value.  The  aim  of  con- 
scious Reason  is  to  return  to  the  Absolute  in  art,  in 
religion,  and  in  philosophy.  Yet  of  this  highest 
goal  of  human  faculty  and  development,  Hegel 
(Collected  Works,  xiii.  66)  can  write:  "Philosophy 
makes  its  appearance  when  the  mind  of  a  nation 
has  worked  itself  out  of  the  indifferent  dulness  of 
the  early  life  of  nature,  as  well  as  out  of  the  period  of 
passionate  interest.  .  .  .  The  soul  takes  refuge  in  the 
realms  of  thought :  and  in  opposition  to  the  real  world  it 
creates  a  world  of  ideas.  Philosophy  is  then  the  repara- 
tion of  the  mischief  which  Thought  has  begun.  She  starts 
with  the  decline  of  a  real  world.  When  she  appears  with 
her  abstractions,  painting  grey  in  grey,  then  the  fresh- 
ness of  youth  and  life  is  already  gone.  Her  reconciliation 
is  not  one  in  reality,  but  in  an  ideal  world  "  (i 8 16-1830). 
Hegel  seems  elsewhere  to  confess  a  radical  otherness  in 
given  nature.  "  As  to  Nature,"  he  says,  "  philosophy,  it 
is  admitted,  has  to  understand  it  AS  IT  IS.  The  philo- 
sopher's stone  must  be  concealed  somewhere  in  Nature 
herself:  Nature  is  in  herself  Rational,  and  knowledge 
has  to  apprehend  the  Reason  actually  pervading  her." 
Does  philosophy  come  too  late  to  teach  us  how  the 
world  ought  to  be  ?  Is  there  not  a  sad  significance  in 
the  reflection  that  Thought  is  the  last  product  of  the  world- 


AGNOSTICISM  123 

process  ?     May  we  not  repeat  with  increased  meaning :  \ 
"The  owl  of  Minerva  takes  its  flight  only  when  the 
shades  of  night  are  gathering  "  ?  J 

§  10.  All  later  developments  of  thought  are  found  in 
embryo  in  the  Hegelian  system.  Unconscious  Reason 
cannot  be  distinguished  from  the  Blind  Will  or  Unknow- 
able Energy  of  later  speculators.  We  bestow  upon  it  a 
name  which  belongs  strictly  to  human  nature,  in  the  full 
confidence  of  the  Kantian  School  that  we  can  interpret 
and  can  approve  the  Cosmic  process.  "  The  subjective 
Idea,"  Hegel  himself  confesses  {Logic,  Eng.  transl., 
Wallace,  371,  373),  "does  not  merely  seek  to  know 
the  objective  world.  It  also  seeks  to  realise  its 
own  ideals  therein.  This  is  the  effort  of  Will  towards 
the  Good.  The  subjective  cannot  altogether  triumph  in 
bending  the  objective  to  its  purposes ;  and  it  is  in  the  last 
resort  compelled  to  fall  back  on  the  faith  that  the  good  is 
radically  and  really  achieved  in  the  world."  It  is  from 
such  a  confession,  extorted  by  the  needs  of  the  practical 
life,  that  later  philosophy  develops.  Again  and  again, 
from  the  ETHICAL  and  the  LOGICAL  standpoint  alike, 
the  problem  must  recur:  Do  THOUGHT  and  THINGS 
agree  so  completely  ?  and  even  if  we  can  master  their 
formula,  can  we  approve  their  purpose?  Do  "the 
Categories  reflect  in  the  mirror  of  pure  thought  the  true 
nature  of  the  objective  world "  ?  (Leighton,  Modern 
Conceptions  of  God,  37).  Does  the  Dialectic  method  "in 
very  truth  reflect  reality"?  can  the  movement  of"  thought 
be  *  infallibly '  shown  to  repeat  itself  in  concrete  form  in 
the  world  of  Nature"?  (45).  Have  we  a  suspicion  that 
Nature  is  perhaps  an  "  irreducible  and  wholly  refractory 
element,  an  unreconciled  factor,  in  the  totality  of  the 
Divine  Idea  "  ?  (20)  Do  we  accept  without  reserve  Mr.  v 
Spencer's  statement :  "  The  Power  manifested  through- 
out the  Universe  distinguished  as  material,  is  the  same 
Power  which  in  ourselves  wells  up  under  the  form  of 
consciousness  "  ?  {Principles  of  Sociology,  iii.  171).    "  The  ' 


124    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

/   physical  government   of  the   world,"    says    J.  S.   Mill 
/     bluntly  {NaturCy  31),  **  being  full  of  the  things  which 
I      when  done  by  men  are  deemed  the  greatest  enormities, 
\     it  cannot  be  religious  or  moral  in  us  to  guide  our  actions 
^    by  the  analogy  of  the  course  of  Nature."     I  must  defer 
a  fuller  survey  of  the  results  of  irrational  Pamethelism, 
of  the  indifferent  criticism  by  English  moral  intuition 
of  the  Cosmic  Process ;  but  I  may  here  conclude  by  a 
summary  of  the  undeniable  results  of  this  new  Gnostical 
Reaction.      In    Schopenhauer   and    Hartmann,   in    the 
'worst'  and  the  'BEST'  of  all  possible  worlds,  intellect 
awakens  in  dismay  only  to  condemn  the  mischievous 
/-activity  of  its  unconscious  trance:  the  former,  still  be- 
,    longing  to   the   Romantic,  the   Byronic    era,   counsels 
C   INDIVIDUAL  emancipation ;  the  latter,  a  pupil  of  later 
/  humanitarianism,  reproves  this   selfish   aim,   and   bids 
/     us  work  for   a  COLLECTIVE  Redemption   of  the   race, 
I     and  of  the  all-wise,  all-perfect  Spirit  entangled  in  the 
;     meshes  of  realities.     For  the  one,  in  quiet  and  seclusion, 
the  sage  or  artist  can  arrive  at  the  goal  alone ;  for  the 
other,  no  less  an  ideal  can  suffice  than  the  salvation  of 
humanity.      Here  is  the  true  whole,  and  persons  are 
but  members  bound  to  disinterested  service  during  the 
transient    illusion    of    their    independent    life.       This 
conviction  of  life's  evil,  this  ideal  aim,  can  impel  men 
to  renounce  a  selfish  quietism  for  a  strenuous  effort  to 
enlighten  blind  impulse  and  tempt   it   to  give  up  the 
useless  struggle.     Does  not  the  Positivist  School  ground 
its  success  upon  a  similar  appeal  for  a  missionary  fervour  ? 
§  11.  Following  Hegel  in  his  historical  conception  of 
Humanity,  is  the  new  Realism  of  Comte.     Strongly  anti- 
democratic and  reactionary,  casting  wistful  but  forbidden 
glances  at  a  patrician  caste  and  a  mediaeval  hierarchy, 
at  the  supposed  ages  of  Faith,  he  centres  his  interest  on 
the  Social  life  of  man,  and  closes  his  eyes  to  the  problem 
which  the  world  of  Nature  forces  on  our  notice.     While, 
too,  the  entire  English  School,  from  the  strictly  scientific 


AGNOSTICISM  125 

side,  from  Mill  and  Darwin,  to  Huxley  and  Romanes, 
unable  to  read  themselves  into  things,  or  find  any- 
correspondence  to  their  ideals  without,  are  content  to 
remain  nobly  but  illogically  constant  to  a  moral  scheme, 
which  reverses  every  tenet  of  science,  and  every  lesson 
of  experience.  Brought  up  in  the  beliefs  of  English  V 
Liberalism,  permeated  with  the  still  forcible  senti- 
ments of  puritanic  morality,  they  attempt  to  sustain  the 
dignity  and  worth  of  the  individual.  With  the  familiar 
sobriety  and  indifference  to  pure  Logic  of  English 
thinkers,  they  place  their  practical  creed  side  by  side 
with  their  theoretical  formula  or  cruel  fact.  This 
complacent  dualism  they  are  at  no  pains  to  reconcile  ; 
and  they  turn  naturally  in  their  most  serious  moments 
to  the  consolations  of  the  Christian  faith.  But  we  have 
already  pointed  out  the  precarious  character  of  this 
compromise  of  Faith  and  Reason,  of  practical^belief  and 
scientific  fact,  of  democratic  and  aristocratic  elements. 
The  movement  for  the  subordination  of  the  humble 
individual,  according  to  universal  law  in  the  natural 
order,  is  proceeding  apace  in  the  world  of  Society.  The 
*  immoralism '  of  *  Zarathustra '  is  but  the  law  of 
nature  carried  into  social  life,  somehow  recognised  as 
a  binding  command,  tinged,  falsified,  or  redeemed  from 
savagery  (as  we  prefer  to  call  it),  by  the  appeal  to 
serve  a  cause  beyond  self, — a  wish  never  extinguished 
in  the  mind  of  man ;  so  to  live  that  our  craven 
race  may  some  day  attain  perfection  in  a  loftier  type. 
The  stern  reformer  has  lost  patience  with  intermittent 
and  personal  efforts  at  social  improvement ;  and  trans- 
fers his  sympathy  from  the  present  individuals  who 
toil  and  suffer,  to  a  scheme,  a  theory,  a  Utopia,  which 
is  but  the  reflection  of  his  personal  vanity  or  scientific 
curiosity.  With  a  widespread  unease,  a  general  wish  to 
co-operate  in  the  cure  of  admitted  evils,  in  a  perfect  unan- 
imity of  somewhat  helpless  good-will ;  we  are  crushed  by 
a  sense  of  pitiless  and  obdurate  law,  which  decrees  that 


126    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

an  over-ripe  civilisation  shall  perish  first  at  the  top ;  that 
the  human  race  exists  for  the  benefit  of  the  few : 
"  Humanum  paucis  vivit  genus"  of  Lucan's  C(2sar\ 
that  the  very  perfection  of  development  makes  us  too 
sensitive  to  suffering  to  bear  the  brunt  of  conflict. 
Philanthropy  seems  arrested  by  irresistible  laws  of 
requital,  consequence,  development,  unknown  but  fatal 
tendencies.  In  such  a  world,  and  such  a  society, 
eager  for  any  novel  explanation  of  the  unseen,  ready 
to  accept  any  doubtful  message  from  the  unknown, 
it  is  for  us  to  consider  under  what  presentation  the 
Christian  faith  can  best  meet  the  needs  of  the  age.  In 
its  power  to  adapt  the  old  truths  to  new  requirements, 
the  Church  of  Christ  is  founded  upon  a  Rock,  and  the 
gates  of  Hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it. 


LECTURE    VIII 

NEEDFUL  ALLIANCE  OF  THE  GOSPEL 
AND  DEMOCRACY 

OvSh  yb,p  ireXelojaev  6  N6/tos,  iireLaayoryr}  5^  KpeirTOVoi  iXwiSos,  di  i}5 
iyyi^ofiev  T(p  Qe^. — Heb,  vii.  19. 

ircffTeva-at  yap  del  rbp  Trpoa-epxofievov  Tip  Ge^  otl  ia-rl,  Kal  rots  iK^ifroxkriv 
avrbv  fiicrdaTrodorris  ylverai. — Heb.  xi.  6. 

"  For  the  law  made  nothing  perfect ;  but  the  bringing  in  of  a  better 
hope  did ;  by  the  which  we  draw  nigh  unto  God.  .  .  .  He  that  cometh 
to  God  must  believe  that  He  is,  and  that  He  is  a  rewarder  of  them  that 
diligently  seek  Him. " 

§  I.  Can  the  Church  still  claim  to  answer  current  needs? 
Ambiguous  meaning  of  the  term  'Democracy' :  a  term  constantly 
repeated  in  various  senses  without  attempt  at  strict  definition  :  its 
debt  to  Christian  and  Mediaeval  ideas  :  its  fatal  entanglement  in  a 
classical  conception  of  the  State  (aristocratic  intellectualism,  and 
worship  of  abstraction)  :  the  democratic  ideal  steadily  losing 
ground  and,  apart  from  reinforcement  of  religion,  doomed. 

§  2.  The  two  threatening  influences,  SizXe,-autocracy  and 
scientific  fatalism  :  '  democracy '  (as  its  minimum)  must  allow  to 
each  man,  worth  and  work  :  modern  revolution  where  it  has  risen 
up  from  beneath,  the  insurgence  of  a  rudimentary  sense  of  equity, 
a  demand  for  partnership  on  equal  terms  :  sense  of  personal 
value  combined  with  loyalty  to  a  cause  (integral  and  complementary 
features  in  all  human  activity). 

§  3.  In  all  three  departments  of  life,  morale  political,  religious, 
we  have  seen  an  original  petulant  selfishness  ennobled  and  trans- 
formed :  instinctive  claim  to  happiness  perfectly  justified  :  in  the  end 
not  a  selfish  but  an  ethical  demand  :  Western  life  built  on  the  con- 
viction, "  God  cares  for  the  individual,  and  will  give  him  his  due." 

§  4.  Antithesis  and  development — realisation  only  through 
striving  against  hindrance :  this  conception  common  to  modem 
scientific  thought  also  true  in  the  single  life  :  that  religion  best 
which  assures  man  of  his  value  in  the  eyes  of  God  :  the  Gospel  a 

127 


128    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

protest  against  Law  :  sympathy  enlisted  because  the  Right  is  weak, 
or  at  least  often  thwarted  ;  the  least  emphasis  laid  on  Divine 
omnipotence :  the  average  mind  has  no  patience  with  autocracy 
or  arbitrary  decree  :  '  constitutionalism ' :  there  is  here  no  such 
hopeless  conflict  of  Will  and  Idea  (democratic,  aristocratic)  as 
prevails  in  secular  thought. 

§  5.  'Work'  as  applied  to  God  (in  Creation,  or  in  Redemption)  : 
however  difficult  to  conceive,  voluntary  circumscription  of 
prerogative  for  the  sake  of  training  others  a  common  experience 
on  earth,  a  powerful  incentive  to  loyalty  and  endeavour. 

§  6.  Deism  at  least  kept  alive  the  ethical  side  of  the  Divine 
nature  :  useful  emphasis  on  the  thought  (strictly  unphilosophic)  of  a 
foreign  element  thwarting  the  Divine  purpose  (Voltaire,  J.  S.  Mill)  : 
Norse  mythology  (like  the  legend  of  Prometheus)  stimulating 
because  the  gods  are  weak  :  experience  tells  only  of  the  striving  and 
manifold  :  ultimate  rest  conceived  (or  postulated)  by  pure  Thought. 

§7.  Religion,  enlisted  with  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  in  the  cause 
of  endeavour:  religious  feeling  elsewhere  (as  we  have  seen) 
disconnected  with  practice^  or  hostile  to  it :  the  root  of  religion 
(wherever  it  can  be  called  personal)  a  desire  to  escape  law  :  this 
becomes  in  Christianity  the  sense  of  special  grace,  special 
conversion,  function  and  endowment. 

§  8.  Danger  of  a  revival  of  pseudo-philosophy,  of  mediaeval 
Realism  :  God's  love  (if  language  is  to  mean  anything)  directed  to 
individuals^  not  to  universals  :  unselfishness  of  Christians,  wherever 
found,  due  to  this  assurance  :  Christianity  not  (as  wrongly  supposed 
by  Nietzsche)  merely  feminine  and  abstentionist :  it  is  quite 
rightly '  incapable  of  rising  to  the  complete  surrender  of  Happiness ' 
(Hartmann). 

§  9.  Noble  but  illogical  appeals  of  German  pessimism  and 
English  science  to  take  part  in  a  world-process,  which  is 
pronounced  blind  and  mistaken  :  apprehensive  sense  in  such 
writers  of  the  decay  of  civic  morality :  it  is  impossible  as 
undesirable  to  abolish  in  men  that  reference  of  all  to  standard  of 
self^  which  is  the  last  achievement  of  one  important  side  of  modem 
thought  and  political  reform. 

§  10.  In  the  difficulties  of  modern  life,  the  suspension  or  anomalies 
of  modern  thought,  the  Church  as  a  conciliator  :  it  alone  can  satisfy 
and  control  the  egoistic  impulse  :  it  alone  can  arrest  the  decay  of 
the  common  life,  of  the  social  basis  of  Western  civilisation. 

§  I.  It  is  now  time  to  review  the  results  of  the  past 
lectures,  and  to  ask  whether  at  the  opening  of  the 
twentieth  century  the  Christian  faith  can  still  claim  to 


[UFgRN^ 

THE  GOSPEL  AND  DEMOCRACY      129 

answer  the  needs  and  reconcile  the  misunderstandings 
of  the  age.  We  have  seen  that  side  by  side  with  a 
wide  but  superficial  acknowledgment  of  what  we  call 
Democratic  principles,  there  has  grown  up  a  habit  of 
thought  which  is  hostile  to  the  rights  of  Man,  to  the 
fundamental  maxims  of  the  Enlightenment.  It  is  a 
persistent  weakness  of  our  generation,  alike  in  the 
religious  as  in  the  political  sphere,  to  repeat  as 
unquestioned  axioms  or  proclaim  as  achieved  results 
phrases  which  have  lost  their  significance,  in  terms 
which  have  very  likely  acquired  a  new  sense.  But 
Democracy  is  of  all  such  expressions.  Progress,  Advance, 
Duty,  Love,  Righteousness,  Law,  Truth,  the  most 
ambiguous,  least  able  to  sustain  the  weight  of  an  exact 
meaning.  It  comes  down  to  us  in  all  its  genuine  and 
essential  claims  from  the  Christian  and  Catholic  middle 
ages.  It  is  reinforced  by  the  revival  of  classical  learning 
and  the  respect  for  an  over-idealised  antiquity ;  but  it 
thereby  suffers  a  stealthy  deterioration,  losing  its  wide 
and  catholic  application,  and  subject  to  restriction  in 
favour  of  intellect  and  privilege.  Never  were  its 
maxims  repeated  with  such  assurance  as  when  an  iron 
and  un-moral  State-supremacy,  colossus  among  atoms, 
was  replacing  the  complicated  and  incoherent  nexus 
of  mediaeval  ideals — ideals  of  the  family  and  of  feudal 
and  corporate  life.  The  two  pretenders  to  sovereignty 
met  in  the  conflict  of  the  French  Revolution ;  and  the 
individual  defeated  there  has  scarcely  recovered  a 
substantial  foothold,  indeed  he  has  from  some  points  of 
view  steadily  lost  ground  during  the  purely  constitu- 
tional struggles  of  the  past  hundred  years.  In  the 
domains  of  social  and  political  intercourse,  in  the  field 
of  economics,  the  fundamental  tenets  of  Democracy  have 
suffered  eclipse ;  and  the  clearer  thinkers  are  demanding 
the  abandonment  of  mischievous  phrases,  the  substitution 
of  expert  efficiency  for  the  intermittent  meddling  of 
amateurs.  National  welfare,  the  Imperial  idea,  would 
9 


130    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

seem  to  enforce  the  sacrifice  of  the  Individual ;  and, 
divorced  from  the  unit,  and  his  dignity  and  worth, 
Democracy  can  have  no  meaning.  It  is  founded  on 
three  beliefs,  which  are  flatly  contradicted  not  only  by 
modern  statesmanship  and  political  theory,  but  by  the 
latest  results  of  scientific  inquiry:  (i)  each  man  as  an 
end-in-himself;  (2)  no  government  to  be  founded  on 
force,  but  the  antithesis  of  rulers  and  ruled  to  be 
overcome  in  a  system  which  draws  together,  merges, 
and  finally  identifies  them  ;  (3)  justice  to  present  needs, 
and  happiness  never  to  be  neglected  in  favour  of  some 
distant  Utopia,  since  no  unfairness  to  the  actual  can  be 
compensated  by  any  visionary  future  benefit.  And  in 
this  connection  let  me  quote  the  words  of  that  latest 
apologist  to  whom  I  have  before  alluded :  and  with 
them  let  us  dismiss  once  and  for  all  the  notion  that  the 
end  justifies  the  means.  Mr.  Mallock  is  speaking  indeed 
of  the  arguments  for  natural  theism,  but  the  same 
method  is  valid  against  all  who  excuse  the  inequity 
and  the  reckless  cruelty  of  a  transition-period  by 
pleading  the  needs  of  a  coming  age.  "  Let  us  grant," 
he  says  {Religion  as  a  Credible  Doctrine^  chap,  ix., 
"  Sentient  Life  and  Ethical  Theism  "), — "  Let  us  grant 
that  by  a  struggle  for  the  existence  of  the  idle,  the 
weak-willed,  and  the  incapable,  we  may  presently  turn 
the  earth  into  a  scene  of  Millennial  beatitude,  we  shall 
not  have  advanced  a  step  toward  the  vindication  of  God's 
goodness.  Whatever  may  be  God's  future,  there  will 
still  remain  His  past.  If  the  lives,  whom  in  the  age  to 
be  He  is  to  bless,  are  to  be  witnesses  to  this  Divine 
goodness, — the  lives,  whom  in  the  past  He  has  blighted, 
will  be  still  crying  to  Him  out  of  the  ground ;  and  since 
the  theist  maintains  that  He  is  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day,  and  for  ever, — the  hand  which  is  red  with  millions 
of  years  of  murder  will  never  cease  to  incarnadine  all 
the  seas  of  eternity."  The  democratic  ideal  demands 
an  ethical   basis,  the  relation   of  conscious  persons  to 


THE  GOSPEL  AND  DEMOCRACY       131 

each  other,  and  withers  and  dies,  if  interest  is  transferred 
to  some  abstraction,  some  racial  solidarity,  or  some 
loftier  type  of  being,  with  which,  we  may  fancy,  our 
decadent  age  is  pregnant.  Concerned  as  it  is  with  this 
present  life,  it  demands  patience  and  considerate 
treatment  for  the  useless ;  immediacy  not  postponement 
of  benefit ;  and  for  its  initial  tenet  as  for  the  solace  of 
its  unrealised  hopes  and  unfulfilled  promises,  it  depends 
strictly  and  logically  enough  upon  the  assumptions  of 
Christian  faith.  Apart  from  religion,  the  democratic 
ideal  is  doomed. 

§  2.  The  two  hostile  forces  are  State-autocracy — 
gradually  demoralised  since  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
relieved  not  merely  from  theological  but  from  moral 
prepossessions  —  and  scientific  Fatalism.  I  do  not 
think  Mr.  Mallock  is  exaggerating  when  he  says 
{I.e.  chap.  X.,  "  The  New  Apologetics  of  Idealism ") : 
"The  whole  philosophy"  of  modern  metaphysicians 
"resolves  itself  into  an  attempt  to  liberate  the  Will, 
which  Science  holds  like  a  prisoner  in  its  web  of 
universal  Causation.  .  .  .  They  recognise  that  the 
central  doctrine,  the  central  peculiarity  of  Religion 
as  distinct  from  Science  and  opposed  to  it,  is  the 
doctrine  of  Free- Will."  Now,  whatever  has  been  won 
in  the  past  for  the  democratic  ideal  (and  we  know 
well  to-day  how  little  it  is),  it  is  without  doubt  due 
to  the  conviction  that  each  man,  here  and  now,  has 
worth  and  work ;  has  rights  because  he  has  duties ; 
and  cannot  be  enslaved  to  the  caprice  of  any  tyrant, 
king,  assembly;  or  economic  law  more  mischievous 
than  the  rest.  He  need  not  bow  to  anything  he 
cannot  understand;  he  is  no  longer  to  be  forced  to 
spend  himself  in  a  cause  he  does  not  approve;  he 
is  not  to  be  a  drudge  of  abstractions,  whether  the 
caprice  of  a  court,  the  cry  of  a  majority,  the  sup- 
posed welfare  of  humanity,  inexorable  Law  of  Nature, 
or  that   Absolute    Reason,   which,   like   the  intellectus 


132  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

agens  of  Aristotle  and  Averroes,  finds  an  outlet  in  the 
unit,  without  respecting  or  exalting  him,  like  the  transient 
and  contemptuous  Theophany  of  the  Gnostics.  This 
attempt  at  liberty  and  self-hood  has  most  certainly 
been  the  motive  force  through  the  intermittent  and 
disappointing  movement,  which  only  the  interested 
and  the  blind  can  call  a  triumphant  march  of  progress 
towards  a  known  destination.  Let  no  one  suppose 
that  I  am  denying  that  priceless  and  familiar  experi- 
ence, devotion  to  a  cause;  the  whole  of  the  second 
lecture  aimed  at  nothing  but  a  demonstration  of  this 
undying  instinct  in  man,  which  compels  him  to  wander, 
like  St.  Christopher,  restless  with  a  *  Divine  discontent,' 
until  he  find  a  Master  who  can  claim  his  whole- 
1  hearted  allegiance.  But  it  is  affectation  to  deny  that 
the  primal  impulse  in  the  religious  as  in  the  political 
consciousness  is  selfish  and  personal.  It  is  the  insur- 
gence  of  a  rudimentary  sense  of  justice  against  unfair 
distribution,  and  the  rigour  of  inexorable  Law.  Both 
take  their  rise  from  the  same  emotion,  which  can 
never  be  reinforced  by  strict  proof,  but  only  justified 
(as  it  were)  by  an  act  of  faith; — a  dim  feeling  of 
*  imperishable  and  aboriginal  worth,'  and  the  decision 
to  prove  this  in  loyalty  to  a  cause.  But  it  must  be 
clearly  understood  that  man  can  only  logically  face 
death  or  pain  or  persecution  because  he  is  assured 
that  his  eternal  welfare  is  in  safe  keeping. 

§  3.  The  development  of  the  moral,  the  political,  the 
religious,  shows  in  all  three  spheres  the  same  feature — 
a  selfish,  petulant  instinct  of  immediacy  transformed  and 
ennobled  ;  an  embrace  of  wider  and  wider  interests  in 
this  indefinite  self,  at  first  so  acutely  sensitive,  solitary, 
and  morbidly  conscious.  At  the  outset,  we  only  question 
law  and  seek  to  evade  it ;  we  protest  against  its  limits, 
and  chafe  against  restraint.  Only  later,  like  our  first 
parents,  do  we  find  obedience  is  the  sole  method  of 
genuine  development,  not  a  hasty  knowledge  of  ends^ 


THE  GOSPEL  AND  DEMOCRACY      133 

but  painstaking  patience  with  means]  the  highest  in- 
dependence, that  "service  which  is  perfect  freedom." 
The  original  impulse  is  not  wrong,  only  wrongly- 
directed  ;  we  can  no  more  abandon  our  instinctive 
claim  to  happiness  in  the  training  and  perfection  of  our 
personality^  than  we  can  abase  ourselves  without  pain  and 
remorse  to  bestial  egoism.  It  is  an  ethical  demand,  and 
is  common  to  learned  and  ignorant,  rich  and  poor  alike : 
while  the  State  talks  of  force^  the  Scientist  of  laWy  the 
Idealist  of  Reason.  We  cannot,  even  in  the  midst  of  exact 
knowledge,  rid  ourselves  of  the  hope  that  there  is  a 
Purpose  in  things  and  that  we  have  a  share  and  a 
place  in  its  advance,  and  its  realisation.  We  shall 
grasp  eagerly  at  any  intimation  that  God  cares  for 
us,  has  work  for  us  to  do ;  nay,  has  need  of  our  help. 
It  is  on  this  secret  or  silent  conviction  that  Western  life 
has  been  founded,  with  its  strange  and  anomalous  features 
of  self-repression  and  common  action,  wild  personal  en- 
terprise and  reverence  for  custom  and  tradition.  I  doubt 
not  that  in  the  past,  men  certain  of  their  nothingness 
have  toiled  without  thought  of  self,  or  prospect  of  reward, 
merely  in  satisfaction  at  the  task  which  left  no  place  for 
despair  or  repining:  but  we  cannot  approach  the  poor 
and  suffering  to-day  and  tell  them  there  is  indeed  a 
God,  unique  fount  of  being,  but  that  He  knows  nothing 
of  them,  cannot  help  them,  will  not  recompense  them. 
Have  we  realised  how  much  of  our  common  moral 
equipment  is  due  to  religious  prejudice?  how  foolish  it 
seems !  how  violently  threatened  from  the  side  of  use 
and  value  are  the  commonest  yet  most  sacred  insti- 
tutions !  how  doubtful  the  survival  of  puritan  prejudice 
in  a  scientific  state  !  The  time  is  passing  when  men  can 
comfortably  suppose  that  Christian  behaviour  outlasts 
Christian  dogma.  We  have  begun  to  trace,  not  without 
anxiety,  their  intimate  connection.  And  as  at  last  we 
have  come  to  this  suspected  term,  let  us  examine  what  is  the 
message  and  the  significance  of  the  Christian  revelation. 


134    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

§  4.  To   two  fundamental   conceptions   lying   at  the 
root  of  the  Christian  faith,  the  late  century  has  brought 
valued  and  unexpected  support.     Modern  thought  might 
indeed  be  said  to  be  summed  up  in  the  two  words,  anti- 
thesis and  development,  development  only  through  and 
because  of  antithesis.  But  the  Gospel  transfers  the  interest 
from  a  secular  or  cosmic  process  to  the  single  life.     If 
science  can  take  nothing  into  account  but  the  fortunes  of 
a  solar  system  or  a  sidereal  universe,  the  gradual  changes 
of  a  species,  the  normal  man,  dismayed  at  these  immen- 
sities, returns  to  his  own  pressing  needs.     Feuerbach,  in 
one  of  his  illuminating  sentences,  tells  us  that  the  pheno- 
mena of  religion  are  due  to  the  impulse  to  satisfy  the 
cravings  of  the   heart,  bursting   through   the   limits  of 
Reason :  thus  (he  continues)  at  the  highest  point,  these 
phenomena  take  on  an  'anti-rational  character.'     The 
individual  claims  (as  we  have  seen)  to  be  the  subject  of 
heavenly  solicitude;   and  among  religious  beliefs  must 
always     prefer     that    system    which    assures    to    him, 
spite  of  all  seeming  and  present  loss,  a  central  place, 
an  ultimate  victory.     Now  the  Gospel  appeals  to  him 
because  in  its  very  essence  it  is  a  protest  against  Law ;  it 
enlists  his   sympathy  because   Right   is  weak  and  not 
powerful.     "  Magna  est  Veritas  et  praevalebit,"  may  seem 
to  combine  the  self-complacence  of  the  Idealist,  to  whom 
the  world  is  already  perfect,  and  the  inspiriting  challenge 
to  the  chivalrous  reformer.     But  to  us  the  emphasis  is 
on  the  future  tense :  we  "  count  not  ourselves  to  have 
.apprehended."    Of  all  attributes  which  a  priori  Theology 
bestows  so  lavishly  on  the  Source  of  Being,  the  least 
noticeable  in  the  Bible  is  the  Divine  omnipotence.     From 
an  ethical  point  of  view,  it  is  just  this  quality  which 
we   might   reasonably   expect   to   be   kept    in    reserve 
and  abeyance.    If  we  have  any  right  to  use  the  analogy 
of  a  human  parent  or  an  earthly  sovereign,  it  is  clear 
that  our  love  and   praise   is  strictly  confined  to  those 
who  circumscribe  their  prerogative,  divest  themselves 


THE  GOSPEL  AND  DEMOCRACY       135 

of  privilege,  communicate  bountifully  rather  than  hold 
jealously  to  their  power.  It  can  scarcely  be  doubted 
that  the  semi-religious  fervour  of  the  Atheists  before 
the  French  Revolution  was  in  the  main  a  protest 
against  the  arbitrary  and  (as  vulgarly  conceived)  the 
un -moral  exercise  of  Divine  authority — a  single  im- 
patient fiat  in  place  of  toilsome  process.  The  history 
of  Nature  and  our  own  records  point  to  a  scheme — 
slow,  painful,  often  thwarted  and  interrupted — of  gradu- 
ally imparting  to  living  creatures  a  sense  of  self-conscious 
independent  life,  which  grows  in  vivid  intensity  until 
it  culminates,  too  often  painfully,  in  civilised  man.  We 
have  already  seen  the  curious  results  in  contemporary^ 
thought  of  the  general  recognition  of  this  doctrine.  From 
the  unknown  Root  of  Being  sprang  the  impulse  to  life, 
blind  and  unconscious ;  and  in  its  ceaseless  development 
a  new  force  came  into  play ;  Reason  and  reflection,  which 
reverse  and  thwart  the  primitive  desire.  For  Will  and 
Idea  in  every  modern  system  confront  each  other  in 
irreconcilable  enmity — just  as  their  counterparts  in 
actual  life,  the  instinct  of  the  people  and  the  re- 
straining or  apathetic  influence  of  knowledge ;  the 
tendency  to  personal  zest  and  gratification,  the  quiet 
acceptance,  at  most  the  stealthy  elusion  of  impersonal 
Law.  Now  the  Christian  faith  allows  no  such  despair 
of  the  province  and  the  efficacy  of  conscious  life. 
Entering  into  no  definite  analysis  of  the  mind,  its 
origin  and  faculty,  allying  itself  with  no  specific  system 
of  philosophy,  keeping  strictly  within  the  understanding 
of  the  simplest,  it  asserts  that  the  universe  exists  for  the 
perfecting  and  discipline  of  souls  for  a  higher  destiny  in  an 
unseen  world  :  of  this  God  Himself  has  been  the  example 
and  will  be  the  reward.  At  one  time,  the  Church  by^ 
austere  detachment  from  society  might  teach  the  vanity 
and  evil  of  all  earthly  things  ;  at  another,  with  no  treason 
to  the  principles  of  its  original  charter,  it  recalls  a  de- 
spairing age  to  the  sense  of  life's  dignity  and  value. 


136    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

§  5.  "  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work."  It 
is  not  perhaps  for  us  to  explain  why  this  sense  of 
gradual  effort  and  precarious  effect  should  be  somehow 
bound  up  with  our  conception  of  God's  dealings  with 
mankind.  Yet  it  would  be  idle  to  deny  that  in  this 
sense  of  the  voluntary  limitation  of  the  Divine,  this 
self-imposed  restraint  of  Almighty  power,  lies  a  principal 
incentive  to  earnest  zeal  for  the  Right.  The  Right 
appeals  to  us  (so  we  have  seen),  because  in  place  of 
realising  itself  with  irresistible  and  inherent  force,  it 
prefers  to  win  by  gentle  pleading  an  entrance  into  the 
heart  of  each.  Whenever  the  layman's  interest  in 
theology  has  revived,  whenever  accepted  dogma  (tending 
always  to  absolutism  and  disparagement  of  the  parf)  is 
once  more  opened  to  scrutiny,  there  have  always  appeared 
two  separate  tendencies:  (i)  to  immerse  the  Deity  in 
His  works,  or  (2)  from  the  ethical  standpoint,  to  dis- 
tinguish Him  from  a  creation  which  conceals  rather 
than  reveals  His  nature.  And  with  this  distinction  of 
the  Creator  and  His  works,  there  arises  another  form 
of  that  Dualism  which  can  never  long  be  kept  at  bay 
even  in  the  strictest  Unitarian  and  Monistic  systems. 
The  old  question  reappears,  Is  the  thwarting  and 
hindrance  of  matter  due  to  mere  stubborn  blindness 
or  to  malevolence  and  deliberate  spite?  Is  evil  a 
mere  sign  of  defect,  or  a  conscious  and  personal 
challenge?  And  is  God  almighty  but  not  all-kind, 
or  is  He  working  to  form,  not  indeed  a  good  or  perfect 
universe,  but  the  *best  of  all  possible  worlds,'  in  the 
most  negative  and  despairing  sense?  Shall  we  limit 
His  goodness  or  His  power?  Let  me  quote  Lotze 
{Microcosmus,  Book  ix.  chap.  5) :  "It  is  quite  useless  to 
analyse  the  attempts  made  to  solve  this  problem. 
No  one  has  here  found  the  thought  which  would  save 
us  from  our  difficulties,  and  I  too  know  it  not.  Let 
us  therefore  say  that  where  there  appears  to  be  an 
unreconciled    contradiction    between    God's    goodness 


THE  GOSPEL  AND  DEMOCRACY      137 

and  His  almighty  power,  there  our  finite  wisdom  has 
come  to  an  end  of  its  tether;  that  we  do  not  under- 
stand the  solution,  which  nevertheless  we  believe  in." 

§  6.  Deism,  with  all  its  narrow  prejudice  and  un- 
accountable repugnance  to  a  Divine  Self-revelation, 
at  least  kept  alive  the  idea  of  moral  creator  and 
righteous  judge,  before  whom  the  fortunes  of  the  human  \J 
race,  the  deserts  of  the  individual,  were  of  far  greater  '< 
import  than  the  rise  and  fall  of  stellar  systems.  It 
led  infallibly,  when  confronted  with  the  manifest  evils 
of  life,  to  a  belief  in  the  necessary  limits  which  refractory 
matter  imposes  on  God's  good  will.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  Theistic  apologetic  during  the  nineteenth 
century  has  been  an  attempt  to  detach  the  Deity  from 
too  close  a  contact,  too  comprehensive  a  responsibility, 
for  the  Natural  order.  We  cannot  here  trace  the 
emphasis  of  this  ethical  conviction  from  Peter  Bayle, 
Rousseau,  and  Voltaire,  down  through  the  English 
Scientific  School.  But  I  must  pause  to  consider  the 
standpoint  of  one  of  our  clearest  thinkers ;  who  stands 
on  the  verge  of  denial,  because  from  religious  motives 
he  cannot  deify  a  natural  power  which  sets  at  defiance 
our  moral  sentiment.  The  three  essays  of  John  Stuart 
Mill  represent  a  standpoint  (perhaps  a  compromise)  >^ 
which  can  never  be  wholly  superseded  by  any  specious 
unity.  He  is  the  spokesman  of  those  who  see  in  God 
a  helper  and  protector,  nay,  a  fellow-striver  who  needs 
our  work ;  not  a  place  of  rest,  where  antitheses  are 
annulled,  and  good  blends  insensibly  with  evil.  We 
have  already  pointed  out  that  both  conceptions  are  - 
necessary  and  complementary ;  but  we  cannot  allow 
the  logical  need  for  an  all-inclusive  world-order 
(rendering  reciprocal  action  possible)  to  supersede  the 
moral  demand.  How  potent  this  sense  of  real  co- 
operation even  in  a  losing  cause  can  be,  let  the  religion 
of  our  ancestors  testify.  The  religious  myths  of  the 
Norsemen,  to  a  degree  unknown  in  Southern  Europe 


138    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

or  the  East,  moulded  conduct  and  nerved  endeavour 
— partly  by  the  very  hopelessness  of  the  conflict. 
"Throughout  his  life,"  says  Professor  Ker,  "the  Norseman 
hears  the  boom  of  the  surges  of  chaos  upon  the  dykes 
of  the  world."  This  is  the  precarious  ground  reclaimed 
from  the  Titanic  forces,  who  are  not  as  in  Greece 
finally  subdued  at  the  outset,  but  only  held  in  check 
for  a  season, — truly  a  x,o(iyjoq^  limited  and  threatened, 
outside  which  are  only  the  demonic  and  unrighteous 
forces  of  Muspelheim,  Nifleheim,  and  Jotunheim.  The 
tales  of  the  battles  of  Odin  and  the  giants,  of  Thor 
and  treacherous  Loki,  passed  into  poetry  when  it  had 
ceased  to  control  as  theology ;  and  received  in  its  final 
form  the  unauthorised  Christian  consolation  of  the 
return  of  Baldur  the  Good  after  the  terrible  day  of 
Ragnarok  and  the  promise  of  '  new  heavens  and  a  new 
earth.'  Unlike  the  theology  of  Greece  and  Rome,  it 
is  a  struggle  not  merely  against  fearful  odds,  but  with 
the  prophecy  of  ultimate  defeat.  Yet  it  is  upon  such 
gloomy  legends  and  traditions  that  the  youth  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  has  been  nourished.  Restless  enter- 
prise, outspoken  defiance,  untiring  toil  in  a  doubtful 
cause,  owe  much  to  a  survival  of  the  old  Viking 
temper — at  its  worst,  a  savage  Berserk^  at  its  best,  the 
calm  heroism  of  a  Christian  martyr.  Diverted  from 
mere  brute  egoism,  lust  of  spoil  and  carnage,  this 
temper  soon  becomes  chivalry,  sense  of  personal  honour, 
P  aristocratic  protection  of  the  weak,  and  is  enshrined 
I  in  the  motto  which  can  never  be  the  text  of  a  bureau- 
V  cracy,  *  Nqblesse  oblige.'  Experience  shows  us  the  fact 
of  a  world  of  manifold  and  conflicting  elements.  Unity 
and  rest  is  rather  a  pious  hope  than  an  accepted  axiom. 
Faith  and  Reason  alike  may  anticipate  a  final  reconcilia- 
tion ;  but  no  one  is  assisted  if  we  deny  the  reality,  the 
genuine  character,  of  the  present  struggle.  We  have  not 
time  to  inquire  fully  into  the  significance  of  the  new  claim 
to  transcend  the  disorderly  realm  of  illusion,  and  rise 


THE  GOSPEL  AND  DEMOCRACY       139 

*  Beyond  Good  and  Bad.'  Religion  and  philosophy  in  its 
highest  intensity  has  usually  professed  to  depreciate  the 

*  fatal  doing '  which  marks  the  sphere  of  turmoil,  and  to 
oppose  the  perfect  calm  of  the  teles  tic  to  the  hurried  and 
feverish  incompleteness  of  the  cathartic  virtues.  And 
it  may  well  be  that  in  some  achieved  equilibrium  of 
a  better  state,  the  sad  material  for  our  moral  virtues 
will  have  been  eliminated,  and  our  charity,  justice, 
compassion,  have  no  call  for  their  exercise.  Yet  at 
present  there  is  no  such  prospect ;  and  we  cannot  lose 
the  example  of  God's  patience  in  the  building  of 
the  world ;  the  pain  and  agony  of  the  scheme  of 
redemption. 

§  7.  It  is  surely  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  Christianity 
Religion  becomes  enlisted  for  the  first  time  in  the  cause 
of  endeavour  and  the  common  life.  In  earliest  origin 
and  in  latest  phases,  religious  feeling  is  distinctly  un-  ' 
connected  with  practice ;  it  is  regarded  with  well-founded 
jealousy  and  suspicion  in  the  city-states  of  Greece  or 
Rome,  and  in  the  world-empire  which  replaced  and 
comprehended  them.  We  have  not  tried  to  disguise 
the  anti-social  tendencies  of  that  selfish  instinct  which 
impels  the  anchorite  or  the  philosopher  to  seek  a  higher 
communion  than  earthly  ties  can  give.  But  here  is  the 
alliance  which  to  us  as  citizens  and  Christians  seems 
indispensable  for  our  Western  ideals.  The  root  of 
religion  is  a  desire  to  escape  law  and  to  transcend  its 
sphere.  Each  converted  sinner  looks  upon  himself  as 
a  standing  miracle,  a  'brand  plucked  from  the  burning' 
by  a  signal  instance  of  the  Divine  mercy.  Here  is  no 
recognition  of  unchanging  order,  no  admiration  for  a 
consummate  whole,  but  rather  a  cry  for  deliverance;  no 
acquiescence  in  perfection,  but  a  curious  halting  between 
a  sense  of  human  frailty  and  unworthiness,  and  pride  in 
that  new  consciousness  of  Divine  sonship.  Fear  and 
diffidence  are  overpowered  in  the  constraining  force  of 
a  special  grace,  a  special  mission ;  God's  messenger  is 


< 


I40  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

summoned  to  remove  mountains  and  convince  the  kings 
and  princes  of  the  earth.  Satisfying  the  personal 
demand  for  worth  and  work,  it  becomes  social.  The 
Gospel  of  Christ  transformed  and  reinvigorated  the 
dying  world  of  antiquity  because  of  its  emphasis  on 
the  individual,  the  one  straying  sheep,  the  single  lost 
piece  of  money;  the  appeal  of  St.  Paul  for  brotherly 
forbearance  is  reinforced  by  the  highest  sanction,  y-rgp 
ov  XpiffTog  aTTsdoci's,  *  for  whom  Christ  died.'  Thus  man's 
impulse  to  religion  is  the  desire  to  assure  himself  not 
of  the  secrets  of  the  universe,  but  of  his  own  place  and 
duty  and  happiness  in  his  limited  surroundings.  The 
effort  of  faith,  essential  to  every  religious  as  to  every 
moral  act,  is  the  conviction,  whether  gradual  or  instan- 
taneous, that  the  life  of  God's  children  is  precious  in 
His  sight.  If  we  read  aright  the  record  of  man's 
thought  or  achievement,  we  shall  find  it  is  this  convic- 
tion alone  (even  if  not  always  consciously  held)  that 
sehds  a  man  cheerfully  to  spend  his  labours  and  his 
life  in  the  cause  of  mercy  or  righteousness.  No  secular 
sanction  can  offer  an  assurance  or  satisfaction  in  any 
way  equivalent.  Religion,  apart  from  the  discipline  and 
perfection  of  the  individual,  the  consecration  and  utilising 
of  his  special  endowment,  cannot  exist  in  the  world  as  a 
dynamic  force. 

§  8.  We  must  beware  of  that  modern  revival  of 
mediaeval  Realism  which  can  artfully  substitute  the  whole 
ffor  the  part,  while  we  are  not  looking.  Mr.  Mallock  is 
^quite  right  when  he  says :  "  The  whole  meaning,  the 
essence,  of  the  theist's  doctrine  of  God  is  his  doctrine  of 
God's  love  for  the  individual  human  soul.  Christ  did  not 
die,  according  to  the  Christian's  idea  of  His  death,  in  order 
to  preserve  the  peculiarities  of  the  Teutonic  race  or  the 
Celtic,  or  to  save  the  soul  of  any  corporate  body.  The 
Church,  no  doubt,  is  spoken  of  as  the  Divine  Bride ;  but 
the  Church  is  nothing  if  not  composed  of  individuals; 
and  except  as  related   to   the  life  and   conduct   of  the 


THE  GOSPEL  AND  DEMOCRACY       141 

individual,  God's  love  is  nothing  also,  as  every  theist 
knows."  So  the  Christian  Church,  while  it  satisfies  the 
legitimate  and  indeed  irresistible  aspiration  and  claim  of 
each  unit  to  be  considered  as  end-in-himself,  neverthe- 
less just  for  this  reason  gathers  up  the  individuals  from 
isolation :  it  sets  them  each  in  his  due  place  in  a 
social  fabric,  with  different  functions  indeed  in  the  hier- 
archy, but  with  no  loss  of  intrinsic  equality.  Talent, 
opportunity,  influence,  capacity,  are  gifts  strictly  lying 
outside  the  real  man,  to  use  rather  than  to  possess. 
The  conception  of  life  is  only  social^  and  devoted  to  the 
common  good,  because  it  is  primarily  and  profoundly 
individualistic.  Only  the  man  assured  of  the  lasting 
worth  and  dignity  of  his  own  life,  of  the  safety  of  his 
happiness  in  the  hands  of  God,  can  afford  to  sacrifice 
it  for  the  benefit  of  others,  in  whom  he  sees  children 
of  a  common  father.  "The  Christian  theory  of  the 
world,"  says  Hartmann  (c.  xiii.)  with  curious  bitterness, 
"  is  simply  incapable  of  rising  to  the  complete  resigna- 
tion of  happiness ;  even  its  ascesis  is  thoroughly  selfish. 
Hence  it  is  small  wonder  if  we,  who  are  still  more  or 
less  entangled,  I  will  not  say  in  the  Christian  faith  but 
in  the  Christian  philosophy,  indignantly  resent  this  com- 
plete renunciation  of  happiness."  In  the  next  chapter, 
with  perplexing  inconsistency,  he  makes  the  very  sur- 
render of  the  last  hope  a  ground  of  earnest  appeal :  "  Of 
the  world  known  to  us,  we  are  the  first-fruits  of  the 
Spirit,  and  must  bravely  wrestle.  If  victory  does  not 
follow,  it  is  not  our  fault.  .  .  .  Therefore  vigorously 
forward !  in  the  world-process  as  workers  in  the  Lord's 
vineyard,  for  it  is  the  process  alone  that  can  bring 
redemption.  Only  in  complete  devotion  to  life  and 
its  pains,  not  in  cowardly  renunciation  and  withdrawal, 
is  anything  to  be  achieved  for  the  world-process." 

§  9.  Some  of  us,  who  listened  some  years  ago  to 
Professor  Huxley  here  in  Oxford,  cannot  fail  to  recall 
his    final    words    of    mingled    optimism    and    despair, 


142    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

of  fatalism  and  appeal  for  effort,  blended  in  an  honour- 
able but  illogical  confusion :  "  Nobody  professes  to 
doubt  that  so  far  as  we  possess  a  power  of  bettering 
things,  it  is  our  paramount  duty  to  use  it,  and  to 
train  all  our  intellect  and  energy  for  this  supreme 
service  to  our  kind."  He  is  indignant  at  the  '  fanatical 
individualism  *  of  our  time :  "  Duties  to  the  State  are 
forgotten ;  and  tendencies  to  self-assertion  are  dignified 
by  the  name  of  rights.  .  .  .  We  should  cast  aside  the 
notion  that  the  escape  from  pain  and  sorrow  is  the 
proper  object  of  life."  Such  language  belongs  to  an 
epoch  that  is  already  closed  for  ever.  To  found  on  the 
evil  and  vanity  of  the  world-order  and  the  single  life  an 
apotheosis  of  the  State,  of  man's  duty  to  man,  to  ground 
an  appeal  for  self-restraint  and  willing  service  for  a  race 
which  never  ought  to  have  issued  from  non-being, — 
such  were  sentimental  theories  current  indeed  in  an 
age  of  transition,  when  criticism,  triumphant  as  it  sup- 
posed over  dogma,  had  not  ventured  to  attack  morals, 
but  sounding  wholly  meaningless  and  incoherent  to- 
day. Closely  'entangled'  indeed  were  these  writers 
with  the  old  presuppositions  which  they  scorned,  who 
thought  that  self-denial  and  renewed  patriotic  zeal 
were  the  natural  corollary  of  the  destruction  of  Christian 
hopes. 

"  It  was  not  religion,"  says  John  Stuart  Mill  ( Utility 
of  Religion),  "  which  formed  the  strength  of  the  Spartan 
institutions ;  the  root  of  the  system  was  devotion  to 
Sparta,  to  the  ideal  of  the  country  or  State,  which, 
transformed  into  ideal  devotion  to  a  greater  country, 
the  world,  would  be  equal  to  that,  and  far  nobler 
achievements."  Here,  combined  with  imperfect 
sympathy,  with  antique  modes  of  thought,  we  have 
a  typical  instance  of  that  humanitarian  hopefulness  of 
a  past  generation,  that  strikes  to-day  so  strangely  upon 
our  ears.  There  is  keener  national  jealousy  and  com- 
petition :  there  is  no  lull  in  the  struggle ;  and  a  *  federa- 


THE  GOSPEL  AND  DEMOCRACY      143 

tion  of  mankind'  would  arise  to-day  from  expediency 
and  not  enthusiasm,  and  would  certainly  begin  by 
restricting  the  privileges  of  humanity  to  the  higher 
races.  Nor  indeed  is  it  possible  for  consciousness, 
once  thoroughly  awakened,  to  become  immersed  once 
more  in  childlike  and  unquestioning  State-duty  and 
routine.  When  he  continues  to  applaud  the  'service 
of  the  State,'  and  desires  to  extend  the  national  duty 
of  Cicero's  'offices'  into  a  cosmopolitan  fervour,  we 
feel  he  is  speaking  to  us  in  an  unknown  tongue,  and 
find  it  hard  to  believe  that  but  half  a  century  has  since 
elapsed. 

"  If,  then,"  he  says,  "  persons  could  be  trained  as  we 
see  they  were  *  in  ancient  Rome,'  not  only  to  believe  in 
theory  that  the  good  of  their  country  was  an  object  to 
which  all  others  ought  to  yield,  but  to  feel  this  pj^actically 
as  the  Grand  Duty  of  life,  so  also  may  they  be  made  to 
feel  the  same  absolute  obligation  towards  the  universal 
good." 

This  may  be  briefly  answered  by  saying  that  we 
cannot  forget  or  abolish  the  effect  of  the  intervening 
period  ;  that  even  their  patriotism  was  confined  to  a 
small  and  highly  interested  circle;  and  that  he  has 
himself  disposed,  on  an  earlier  page,  of  any  right  to 
use  such  dogmatic  terms  as  the  Universal  Good,  by 
refusing  to  recognise  a  motive  or  an  end  in  Creation : 
"  The  past  and  the  future  are  alike  shrouded  from  us ; 
we  neither  know  the  origin  of  anything  that  is,  nor  its 
final  destination."  In  such  a  sceptical  confession  of 
universal  mystery,  we  may  approve  the  naive  civism 
of  the  English  School,  but  in  motive  only,  not  in 
logic. 

Yet  the  odd  persistence  of  obsolete  notions  of  duty, 
obligation,  and  (however  vaguely  and  timidly  expressed) 
of  the  'Beauty  of  Holiness,'  point  unmistakably  to  a 
need  of  the  human  heart  which  cannot  be  expelled,  to 
an  emotion  which  cannot  be  left  without  an  object.     In 


144    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

face  of  such  a  sublime  defiance  of  the  laws  of  logic  and 
the  cosmic  process,  in  favour  of  a  moral  ideal  of 
purposeless  heroism,  let  no  one  deny  the  empire  of  trust 
and  hope  over  the  human  heart,  and  let  no  one  accuse 
the  Christian  of  his  venture  of  confidence  and  his  wager 
of  Faith.  But  let  us  not  be  deceived ;  the  day  is  past 
for  the  repetition  of  such  poetic  sentiment.  We  are  too 
near  facts ;  and  we  are  accustomed  to  a  colder  analysis ; 
we  have  severed  departments  too  rigorously.  The 
people,  long  cajoled  by  promises,  finding  themselves 
no  better  for  the  increase  of  constitutional  complexity, 
are  resentful  at  delay ;  and,  losing  confidence  in  ideals, 
suggest  immediate  enjoyment.  Neither  pure  selfishness 
nor  pure  altruism  is  typical  of  the  heart  of  man ;  both 
are  abnormal  developments,  and  it  must  be  remembered 
that  we  are  trying  not  to  support  a  theory,  but  to  reach 
the  average  consciousness  of  mankind ;  and  perhaps  to 
mediate  between  two  irreconcilable  conceptions  of  our 
life.  The  two  impulses  to  self-development  and  to  service 
of  others  are  blended  and  cannot  be  gratified  apart. 
Yet  it  may  safely  be  said  that  the  satisfaction  of  the 
/'demand  for  worth  and  work  must  precede  any  confident 
and  eager  endeavour  in  the  cause  of  others'  welfare,  at 
least  if  it  is  destined  to  withstand  the  despondency  of 
temperament,  the  shock  of  disappointment,  the  logic  of 
calm  reflection. 

§  lo.  I  began  by  disavowing  any  schemes  of  defiant 
or  paradoxic  apology;  the  mission  of  the  Church  of 
Christ  is  to  conciliate,  it  is  a  disinterested  arbiter.  But 
we  have  been  obliged  to  expose  the  fallacy  or  blindness 
of  those  generous  but  mistaken  speculators  who  transfer 
virtues  and  emotions  natural  to  a  world  of  moral  purpose 
and  individual  meaning,  to  a  secular  process,  where  to 
*  follow  Nature,*  the  only  known  law,  is  to  struggle  at 
all  cost  after  survival.  What  is  imperilled  now  is  the 
sense  of  Duty,  the  value  of  ideals,  moral  restraint,  and 
that  peculiar  and  complex  system  of  moral  behaviour 


THE  GOSPEL  AND  DEMOCRACY       141 

which  owes  more  to  religious  and  less  to  social  forces 
than  we  care  to  allow.  It  is  idle,  in  an  age  which  is 
unconsciously  absorbing  very  rudimentary  influences 
and  impulses,  to  point  to  instances  here  and  there  of 
isolated  generosity,  where  a  sense  of  virtue  survives 
the  conviction  of  personal  nothingness,  co  rXjjfJjOv  <kpirjj 
Xoyog  ap'  ^(r^,  syai  hi  eg  cug  spyov  7](fK0vv.  We  have  at 
least  traced  the  evaporation  of  the  old  spiritual  fervour 
from  the  great  departments  of  common  life ;  of  moral 
aim  from  the  State,  of  design  and  purpose  from  the 
world  of  Nature.  We  are  confronted  with  the  reason- 
able yet  inconvenient  demands  of  a  people  to  whom 
we  no  longer  give  whole-heartedly  the  consolations  of 
Religion,  to  whom  the  fantastic  panaceas  of  statesmen 
must  seem  a  mockery  rather  than  an  alleviation  of 
their  distress.  Reflection  as  a  contemplation  of  the 
unity  of  things  somehow  drifts  farther  away  from  the 
needs  and  the  understanding  of  the  average  man.  The 
failure  of  the  proposed  remedies  has  become  a  common- 
place. It  is  far  from  our  purpose  to  deride  the  un- 
conscious piety  of  the  apostles  of  Enlightenment  or 
disparage  the  well-meant  efforts  of  the  leaders  of 
Reform  ;  but  it  is  time  that  attention  was  directed  to 
the  forces,  intellectual  and  social,  which  are  slowly  but 
surely  dissolving  our  Western  civilisation.  The  Gospel,  \ 
in  its  simple  appeal  to  the  individual  consciousness,  in 
its  certain  and  confident  answer  to  the  problems  of 
life,  demands  no  greater  venture  of  faith  than  we  see 
underlying  the  speculations  of  honest  doubt.  And  the 
future  of  our  threatened  State  lies  with  the  Church; 
lies  with  that  creed  which  teaches  that  all  men  are  equal 
before  their  Father  in  heaven,  and  that  highest  and 
lowest  alike,  sinners  yet  heirs  of  everlasting  life,  are 
united  as  brothers  by  a  common  hope  in  a  common 
salvation.  Hear  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter: 
God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself. 


10 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  I— A 
On  the  Duty  of  Conciliation  in  Apologetic 

§  I.  Gospel  message  universal :  cannot  afford  to  disregard  anything 
human  :  singular  merit  of  the  Mediceval  Church  :  its  ecumenical  claims 
and  universal  sympathy. 

§  2.  The  modern  Church  resigns  this  overwhelming  responsibility, 
just  as  political  reform  has  been  largely  due  to  indolence :  '  liberty  of 
conscience  '  an  easy  creed,  especially  for  the  governing  classes  :  coercion 
of  the  unwilling  for  their  own  good  has  ceased  in  the  Church. 

§  3.  While  compulsion  passes  to  the  State,  the  Churches  left  without 
rivals,  as  engines  of  moral  appeal :  increase  of  force  in  secular  matters : 
open  field  for  the  influence  of  an  unarmed  Church. 

§  4.  The  duty  of  sympathy  brings  in  the  problem  of  Faith  and 
Reason :  the  appeal  addressed  to  average  man,  not  to  the  exceptional : 
the  message  is  of  Divine  interest  in  men,  not  of  speculative  attributes, 
e.g.  '  omnipotence  '  :  Religion  is  not,  cannot  be,  philosophy  :  the 
religion  of  reason  fails,  because  it  is  general,  not  particular. 

§  5.  *  For  whom  Christ  died  '  :  '  every  man  as  an  end  '  :  but  is  the 
intellect  excluded  ?  it  is  secondary  and  subordinate  :  modern  specialism 
makes  the  universal  claim  of  the  Church  difficult :  Scientific  Law  and 
religious  grace  hard  to  discuss  together  :  Church  as  the  garden  of  souls, 
which  other  theories  hardly  allow  to  exist  :  Truth  in  this  life  never  seen 
as  an  unbroken  whole. 

§  I.  Of  the  many  points  raised  for  discussion  in  the  preced- 
ing lecture,  none  perhaps  is  so  important  to-day  as  the  right 
tone  of  apologetic.  The  Church  claims  universality  for  the 
Gospel  message,  which  implies  a  power  of  adaptation  to  the 
varied  needs  of  successive  ages.  It  cannot  afford  to  make 
enemies  gratuitously,  or  to  allow  any  part  of  human  nature, 
any  object  of  human  interest,  to  lie  outside  its  sympathy. 
We  recognise  the  nobleness  of  the  mediaeval  ideal  in  the  wide 
scope  of  ecclesiastical  tutelage,  and  we  cannot  but  regret  its 
failure,  even  if  such  failure  was  inevitable.  The  Middle  Ages 
indeed  suffered  in  Church  and  State  from  the  sublimity  of 

147 


148    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

their  ideals ;  the  only  too  patent  discrepancy  between  exalted 
theory  and  petty  practice.  The  Church,  in  her  eager  deter- 
mination to  include  everything  human,  went  too  far  in 
concession  to  individualism.  Every  class  in  the  civil  hierarchy 
had  its  due  functions  and  failings,  every  representative  his 
special  temptations  and  besetting  sins.  Allowance  must  be 
made  for  all.  Persecution,  which  only  developed  gradually  and 
with  reluctance,  which  reflected  rather  certain  national  and 
racial  characteristics  than  settled  Church  policy,  might  be 
attributed  to  fear  of  contagion,  to  the  need  of  stern  example, 
ense  reddendum,  but  also  to  an  exaggerated  interest  in  the 
eternal  welfare  of  the  culprit,  a  too  sensitive  interpretation 
of  the  responsibility  of  'pastors  and  masters.'  Mr.  Buckle 
has  done  good  service  for  a  juster  estimate  of  the  motives 
which  swayed  and  directed  the  severest  features  of  Church 
discipline.  In  any  case  we  must  refuse  to  allow  the  criticism 
or  take  seriously  the  indignation  of  those  who  defend  the  far 
more  aggravating  and  intolerant  encroachment  of  the  reformed 
hierarchies  on  private  liberties  in  Scotland  or  Geneva,  or 
of  those  who  see  nothing  to  censure  in  the  new  social  rule, 
that  the  safety  of  the  State  is  the  sole  law.  We  may,  nay  we 
must,  regret  the  uncompromising  unity,  the  absolute  sovereigny 
claimed  by  the  Church,  the  implication  of  secular  and  spiritual 
duties,  the  employment  of  bodily  force  to  intimidate  conscience, 
to  expel  error,  or  to  browbeat  honest  conviction.  We  can 
deplore,  too,  the  frequent  abuse  of  these  large  powers  by  the 
interested,  as  we  can  that  italianising  of  the  once  ecumenical 
papacy  which  more  than  any  other  cause  precipitated  the 
Teutonic  Reformation.  But  we  can  recognise  the  nobility  of 
original  motive,  the  singleness  of  aim,  the  zeal  of  the  devoted 
Catholic  hierarchy  from  highest  to  lowest,  who  at  the  cost  of 
ceaseless  toil  and  self-denial  were  true  to  their  purpose,  to 
leave  'nothing  human'  outside  the  ennobling  influence  of 
the  Church. 

§  2.  It  would  have  been  so  much  easier  to  have  divided 
with  an  amicable  partition  those  tutelary  duties,  sacred  and 
profane.  How  much  of  our  vaunted  constitutional  reform  is 
due  to  a  sense  of  justice  ?  How  much  to  a  genuine  desire  to 
be  rid  of  an  overwhelming  responsibility?  How  we  have 
lately  marvelled  at  the  reluctance  of  autocracy  to  communicate 


ON  THE  DUTY  OF  CONCILIATION      149 

cheerfully  and  spontaneously  what  after  all  is  but  an  irksome 
burden,  only  to  the  uninitiated  a  privilege !    We  are  in  the 
Church  of  England  more  modest  in  our  claims,  more  restricted 
in  our  sphere :   the  recognition  of  individual  liberty  of  con- 
science has  relieved  us  of  an  anxious  and  never-ending  care. 
Some    future    historian   of  emancipation   from  political   and 
clerical   leading-strings   may  perhaps,  *if  defending  a  thesis,' 
show  that  sloth  and  selfishness  were  at  the  bottom   of  the 
movement.     "  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ?  "     A  Divine  Right 
is   merely   a  heavy   weight,   and   the   larger   the   number  of 
constituents  of  the  sovereign  power,  the  '  easier  lies  the  head ' 
of  the  titular  sovereign.     Now  we  may  deny,  we  may  boast, 
or  we  may  be  ashamed  of,  the  decay  of  direct  influence  among 
the  clergy  of  the  Reformed  Churches.     It  is  not  a  question 
which  immediately  interests  us  at  this  point.    We  are  concerned 
with   the    Church's    attitude   to  the  world,  the  tone  of  the 
Gospel    tidings.     It  is    clearly  implicated    (I   will    not    say 
entangled)  in  social  and  political  questions,  and  the  emphasis 
on   this   or   that  portion  of  the  Divine  message   must  vary 
with  the  varying  needs  of  the  age.     And  the  attitude  assumed 
must  be  one  of  candid  interest  and  sympathy,  never  of  mere 
authority,  defiance,  non  possumus.     We  cannot  revert  in  the 
Church  to  a  feudal  patronage  of  comfortable  automata :  the 
wonderful  minuteness  of  the  hourly  control  among  the  Jesuit 
converts    in     Paraguay    can    perhaps    attract    the    visionary 
socialist  who  understands  neither  history  nor  human  nature, 
but  deceives  no  one  who,  besides  knowing  the  heart  and  its 
instincts  and  impulses,  has  given  even  a  cursory  glance  to  the 
trend  of  European  development.     It  may  well  be  found  that 
the  Church  (like  a  personal  sovereign)  is  the  sole  agency  for 
moral,  opposed  to  coercive,   appeal.     There   are  grave   and 
noteworthy  signs  abroad  that  the  secular  power,  despairing  of 
enlisting  the  loyalty,  of  securing  the  co-operation,  of  all  its 
citizens,    and    bound    to    maintain   its   own    survival    as    a 
competing  organism  in  the  struggle  of  life,  will  sacrifice  easily 
the  old  notions  of  personal  value,  freedom,  accountability ;  the 
old  Kantian  axiom,  "  Every  man  as  an  end,  not  merely  as  a 
means."    We  recognise  that  *  minorities  must  suffer'  in  the 
easy  give  and  take  of  matters  indifferent  to  the  conscience. 
But  a  reaction  in  favour  of  the  old  State  Absolutism  of 


ISO    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

the  monarchic  period  (so  called),  the  over-riding  of  personal 
interests  and  scruples,  is  impossible  to-day,  unless  we  are 
prepared  to  turn  national  history  into  a  mere  series  of  oscilla- 
tions, swings  of  the  pendulum,  in  which  each  new  Government 
has  but  one  duty  before  it :  to  right  the  wrongs  and  reverse  the 
policies  of  its  predecessor. 

§  3.  The  Church  has  finally  renounced  coercion  of  the 
unwilling,  has  limited  its  mission  to  conversion  of  the 
unconvinced.  Under  a  provocation  happily  unknown  hitherto 
in  our  country,  some  protests  reach  us  from  remote  Italy,  that 
persecution  has  not  been  abandoned  as  a  principle  and  might 
even  on  occasion  be  revived ;  but  we  need  not  listen  seriously 
to  this  mere  echo  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Churches,  in  the 
disappearance  of  other  moral  agencies,  have  been  left  a  fair 
field.  Their  policy,  as  well  as  their  mission,  is  to  conciliate, 
to  harmonise,  to  show  sympathy.  It  is  idle  to  close  one's  eyes 
to  the  signs  of  the  times :  class  envies,  national  and  racial 
jealousy,  ill-defined  subterranean  movements  which  elude 
calculation  and  control,  open  and  rudimentary  challenges  to 
surrender.  And  yet  it  is  a  commonplace  of  history  and  of 
experience  that  no  authority  can  long  defend  itself  by  force. 
Public  opinion  (perhaps  not  much  stronger  in  volume,  not 
more  vocal  to-day  than  in  the  benighted  days  of  personal  rule) 
has  always  been,  will  always  be,  the  sovereign.  And  public 
opinion,  while  it  resents  the  application  of  force,  consents  to  be 
converted,  recognises  the  value  of  appeal.  Two  allied  nations^ 
one  the  foremost,  the  other  the  most  backward  in  European 
civilisation,  have  assumed  of  late  the  appearance  of  armed 
camps ;  and  the  foe  is  within  and  of  their  own  family.  The 
rapid  declension  to  coercive  measures  throughout  Europe 
during  the  last  century  must  cause  alarm  to  every  unprejudiced 
observer.  The  future  of  a  civilised  nation,  it  might  be 
presumed,  after  the  confident  prophecies  of  Victorian  writers, 
must  rest  with  unconstrained  devotion  to  principles,  amity 
in  class  relations,  elimination  of  penalty,  of  bayonet,  of 
truncheon.  But  the  inefficacy  of  moral  appeal  is  a  common- 
place to-day ;  it  is  heard  with  impatience,  it  is  uttered  falteringly. 
Moral  agencies  must  be  defenceless;  for  therein  lies  their 
strength.  Personal  sovereignty,  in  king  and  pontiff,  has  gained 
of  late  by  the  divorce  from  forcible  control.     No  one  could 


ON  THE  DUTY  OF  CONCILIATION      151 

venture  to  deny  the  value  of  such  a  last  resort  in  unending 
class  warfares  or  race  feuds.  The  Church,  armed  simply  with 
the  Gospel  message  of  individual  salvation,  and  because  of 
this  ready  to  sympathise  in  every  phase  of  personal  character 
and  communal  development,  starts  at  least  with  no  prejudice 
against  it  on  the  score  of  ambitious  authority  or  coercive 
control.  And  while  the  more  conservative  must  beware 
of  mistaking  the  time-honoured  for  the  essential,  let  the 
champions  of  freedom  and  advance  take  care  that  they  do 
not  become  tyrannous,  secular,  'political,'  and  identify  the 
Gospel  with  the  bitterness  of  social  rancour  and  the  shibboleths 
of  a  narrow  party. 

§  4.  But  this  stress  on  the  duty  of  sympathy  and  conciliation 
especially  suggests  the  problem  of  Faith  and  Reason,  doctrine 
and  philosophy,  the  age-long  conflict  which  with  all  the 
countless  fluctuations  of  meaning  and  definition  has  advanced 
so  little  since  apostolic  times.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  in  the 
first  lecture,  though  a  brisk  attempt  was  made  to  review  the 
whole  period,  any  very  definite  lesson  was  learnt  or  result 
attained.  Any  remark  on  the  attitude  of  the  Church,  to 
positive  Science,  for  example,  or  Idealist  reflection,  must 
savour  either  of  paradox  or  of  the  veriest  commonplace.  It 
seems  that  the  preacher  must  take  his  stand  on  the  catholicity 
of  his  appeal.  It  is  no  use  denying  that  he  speaks  to  average 
man.  He  cannot  flatter  the  exceptionally  gifted,  either  in 
wealth  or  influence  or  intellect,  without  being  untrue  to  his 
mission.  He  enters  when  the  other  forces  or  consolations  of 
life  have  been  exhausted,  are  powerless  to  raise  or  to  comfort. 
He  must  be  content  to  meet  men  and  women  on  the  sordid 
level  of  the  actual,  of  this  or  that  private  experience  or 
spectacle  of  others'  misery  which  has  left  the  soul  in  despair. 
He  is  indifferent  to  nothing  external  that  may  help  to  revive 
a  dwindling  self-respect  or  a  kindliness  towards  a  society  that 
is,  after  all,  mainly  responsible  for  the  victims'  misfortunes,  a 
faith  in  a  God  who  seems  to  have  left  this  world  alone.  It 
is  the  simplicity,  if  you  like,  the  opportunism  of  this  appeal, 
that  is  essential.  The  Gospel  is  useless  if  it  cannot  fit  the 
lowest  depression,  the  vilest  guilt  of  real  life.  "  God  cares  for 
the  sinner,  and  has  suffered  that  he  might  be  saved":  it  is 
nothing  more  and  nothing  less.     Here  we  have  the  irreducible 


152    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

minimum  of  'credenda.'  How  idle  to  begin  in  speculative 
theology,  with  a  curious  list  of  metaphysical  attributes  !  Unless 
we  know  how  God  employs  this  power,  a  titular  omnipotence, 
contradicted  at  every  hour  of  experience,  is  a  matter  of  mere 
scholastic  declamation;  to  the  average  man  of  supreme 
indifference,  to  the  sufferer  a  mockery.  The  superstructure 
of  the  Gospel  story  has  at  first  no  reference  at  all  to  the  poor, 
the  bereaved,  the  needlessly  suffering.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  the  attempts  to  identify  religion  and  philosophy  have 
failed.  Religion  within  the  sphere  of  reason  is  but  the 
recognition  of  certain  general  truths,  and  only  the  most 
dubious  item — future  judgment — has  any  reference  to  the 
individual,  his  hopes  or  his  behaviour.  The  course  of  years 
has  shown  that  the  once  certain  axioms  of  this  meagre  and 
impersonal  creed  are  to  many  devout  and  thinking  minds 
completely  indemonstrable,  if  not  hopelessly  improbable.  The 
Church  and  its  ministers  have  not  the  time  or  the  wish  to 
desert  their  proper  task  in  order  to  patch  up  a  precarious 
eirenicon  with  a  prevailing  phase  of  thought. 

§  5.  This,  then,  is  the  limit  which  must  always  be  put  to 
doctrinal  compromise:  wep  ov  Xpicrros  atreOavev.  There  is 
the  genuine  test.  'Opportunist  and  individuahst,'  it  will  be 
said ;  but  what  if  the  rigour  of  a  sound  ethical  philosophy  as 
well  as  the  tenderness  of  the  Gospel  unite  in  insisting :  "  every 
man  as  an  end,  not  merely  as  a  means"?  Has,  then,  the 
Church  nothing  to  do  with  Reason,  with  dogma,  with  the 
intellect?  Can  it  afford  to  miss  the  chance  of  reaching  un- 
belief through  the  understanding  ?  How  far  is  it  justified  in 
comforting  the  ignorant  by  the  crude  fancies  of  mythology? 
It  is  idle  to  deny  that  such  problems  are  raised  to-day.  Let 
us  say  this,  that  the  answering  of  hard  questions  is  a 
secondary  and  subordinate  duty.  The  specialism  which  besets 
all  modern  life  and  its  studies  gives  each  institution  a  separate 
function  and  sphere,  to  each  man  his  special  endowment 
and  worth  through  work.  Science  at  least  is  on  our  side,  in 
preferring  idiosyncrasy  to  any  abstract  generalisation ;  as  when 
Galileo  told  us  that  it  was  the  exceptional  in  the  stone  or  the 
man,  and  not  the  typical^  that  was  of  interest — just  the  rough 
corners,  not  the  polished  sphere.  At  every  turn  we  are 
reminded  that  truth  is  many-sided,  and  that  no   man   can 


ON  THE  DUTY  OF  CONCILIATION      153 

look  it  full  in  the  face;   that  we  are  apt  to  disappear  from 
each   other's   gaze   down  the    little   private  tunnels   of   our 
exploration.    There  is  as  yet  no  clearing-house  of  knowledge ; 
no  common  dialect  of  the  regions  of  facts,  of  ideas,  of  values. 
One  who  attempts  to  estimate  this  entire  complexity  of  life 
must  needs  be  superficial  and  run  bravely  the  risk  of  error 
and   misunderstanding.      All   we   can   do   is   to   be   modest, 
patient,  charitable — especially  where  we  cannot  grasp.     The 
signal  difference  of  standpoint  and  principle  which  makes  the 
debates  of  Church  and  Philosophy  sometimes  so  unreal,  is  that 
they  are  not  thinking  of  the   same  thing :   the  one  of  the 
certainty  of  Law  universal,  the  other  of  hopes  of  exceptional 
grace  and  forgiveness ;  the  one  of  some  imposing  abstraction 
or   figment   of    convenient    usage,   arbitrary   *  concretions   in 
discourse ' — State,  universe,  spirit.  Reason ;  the  other  of  some 
trembling  and  disquieted  seat  of  consciousness.     To  the  one, 
the  ultimately  real  is  the  ideal ;  to  the  other,  the  person,  the 
soul.     Howsoever  begotten,  and  for  whatever  purpose  in  the 
world-process,  there  to  us  is  reality.    It  is  still  acutely  sensitive, 
it  feels  pain  and  pleasure  and  entertains  strange  hopes,  though 
it  is  menaced  with  annihilation.     The  Church  is  the  com- 
munity in  which  this  strange  plant  can  thrive ;  for  a  recognition 
of  the  unit  leads  to  no  barren  subjectivism,  the  hallowing  of 
mere   caprice,   or    anchorite    seclusion.     The    Church   is  a 
community  in  a  sense  in  which  Universe  and  State  cannot 
hope  to  be.     The  apologist  has  not  primarily  to  answer  or  to 
adjust ;  but  he  must  find  a  place  for  all.     His  own  message 
is  simple  enough,  but  no  pride  of  intellect  must  lead  him 
to  entanglement ;  pure  thought  is  another  province.     By  his 
very  profession  he  is  debarred  from  recognition  of  some  of 
its   chief  axioms ;    he   always   hopes   in   God's   mercy,  in  a 
special  and  signal  favour  for  the  sinner.    He  will  not  prescribe 
to  the  philosopher,  nor  will  he  allow  his  own  chosen  standpoint 
of  practice  to  be  weakened  or  compromised.     Each  has  a 
certain  work  to  do ;  the  same  set  of  diagrams  or  letters  will  not 
serve  for  every  department  of  life.    Nay,  in  the  same  person  are 
there  not  of  necessity,  according  to  his  mood  or  study,  aspects 
altogether   distinct,   intervals  insurmountable   in   that  Truth, 
which  in  this  world  at  least  is  never  seen  as  an  unbroken 
whole  ? 


154    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

B 

On  the  Conflict  of  Reason  and  Instinct 

§  I.  The  eighteenth  century,  or  the  'Age  of  Reason'  :  personal, 
utilitarian,  and  in  maxims  of  government,  parental  and  autocratic, 
not  as  bureaucrat  or  priest,  but  as  philosopher. 

§  2.  Belief  in  the  omnipotence  of  the  legislator  :  happiness  at- 
tained through  application  of  rational  and  universal  principles  to  dis- 
order of  life  :  ideal  a  cosmopolitan  federation  :  rude  awakening  in  the 
emergence  of  the  new  element. 

§  3.  Examination  of  FsiCts,  apart  from  preconception :  subterranean 
forces,  hitherto  unsuspected,  seem  to  be  working :  no  theory  of  values,  or 
of  purpose  :  Reason,  unconscious  and  aimless  :  Real  was  the  Rational 
in  a  sense  totally  distinct  from  eighteenth-century  usage  :  Neo-Kantians 
identify  unconscious  Reason  with  God. 

§  4.  This  comprehension  of  all  things  under  Reason,  sterile,  as  in 
earlier  times,  the  abuse  of  Final  Causes  :  '  will '  soon  accepted  as  a  truer 
title,  less  burdened  with  purposive  implication :  disuse  of  term  Reason 
marks  close  of  the  new  Medicsvalism  :  gradual  lapse  into  the  unknow- 
able, or  the  Cosmic  process. 

§  5 .  Exact  reverse  of  early  Hellenic  development,  from  nature  to  man, 
from  Thales  to  Aristotle  :  Humanism  becomes  unpopular  in  the  post- 
classical  epoch  :  modern  thought  has  followed  this  latter. 

§  6.  Instinct  :  fabric  of  usage  and  custom,  in  savage  tribes  and  in 
Utopias  to-day  :  difficulty  of  '  reversion  to  type,'  owing  to  critical 
subjectivism  of  ordinary  thought. 

§  7.  Antithesis  of  reflected  and  spontaneous  action:  opposing 
views  and  tendencies  to-day  :  difficulty  of  obtaining  respect  for  Law, 
or  common  welfare  :  Reason  unsocial. 

§  8.  Hesitation  of  natural  ethics :  vagueness  or  insignificance  of 
their  axioms :  Reason  and  Law  prescribe  only  the  minimum :  scanty 
results  of  independent  moral  inquiry  :  basis  of  morality  must  remain 
emotional. 

§  I.  Frequent  reference  will  be  found  in  these  lectures  to 
the  recognition  of  a  certain  hostility,  supposed  to  exist  between 
subconscious  and  conscious  thought,  whether  in  the  individual 
or  in  society.  I  shall  here  call  it  the  conflict  of  Reason  and 
Instinct,  using  these  words  not  in  any  very  strict  sense  but 
with  sufficient  precision  for  our  purpose.  The  eighteenth 
century  (as  is  often  remarked)  may  very  well  bear  the  title 
'Age  of  Reason.'  Where  God  was  acknowledged.  He  bore 
the  character  of  a  magnified  human  personality,  first  mover 


REASON  AND  INSTINCT  155 

and  moral  judge,  sitting   quite   apart   from   the  mechanical 
system,   and    so    loosely    connected    thereto    that    French 
materialism  felt  no  scruple  in  dispensing   altogether  with  a 
postulate  so  superfluous.     But  until  the  revival  of  Spinoza 
(which  is  merely  materialism  beatified),  the  emphasis  was  upon 
the  uniqueness,   the   personality,  the   conscious   reason,  the 
deliberate   moral   aim   of  a   power   transcending   all   human 
qualities,  but  differing  in  degree  and  not  in  essence.     So  in 
their    anthropology    the    *  man '    they    confronted    was    the 
educated  intelligent  social  being,  conceived  of  in  a  classical 
aspect,  as  free   from  illusion  and  enthusiasm,  self-sufficient, 
and  a  determined  opponent  of  convention  (not  indeed  because 
it  was  a  subconscious   creation — of  this   in   the   century  of 
Enlightenment    the    philosopher    had    no    conception  —  but 
because  Church  and   State  were  hypocritical  impostures   of 
interested  individuals,  of  priest  and  king).     Protests  in  favour 
of   native   human   goodness,    of  rudimentary   sympathy   and 
brotherly  kindness,  were  made  in  a  tentative  way;  but  it  is 
clear  that  the  claims  of  the  heart  of  the  average  man  were 
disregarded,  and  all  faith  in  the  future  pinned  to  the  capture 
of  State-autocracy  (and  with  it,  of  compulsory  education)  by 
the  philosophic  elect.     In  Germany — Teutonic  and  subjective 
alike  in  war,  in  politics,  in  contemplation — the  Enlightenment 
was   absorbed  in   the   problem   of  personal   immortality,    to 
which  more  strictly  theologic  questions  were  subordinated :  it 
was  the  conscious   survival  of  the   intelligent   spirit,  not  re- 
immersed  in  a   reservoir  of  thought,   but   preserving  all  its 
achieved  individuality  and  asking  for  more  realms  to  conquer. 
"Have   I   not    time    before    me,   and   is   not  eternity   long 
enough?"     Clearness  was  the  test  of  truth,  as  among  true 
Cartesians  on  either  side  of  the  Rhine,  not  the  dimness  of 
incalculable  impulse.     Read  the  two  popular  expositions  of 
current   philosophy,    Volney's   Ruins  and   Holbach's   System 
of  Nature,  and  you  will  ascertain  the  strength  and  the  limita- 
tions of  the  eighteenth  century  and  its  Enlightenment.     There 
is   no   sentimental    sacrifice    to    others;     there   is   a   robust 
prudence,  which  finally  resolves  the  moral  dictates  into  the 
self-evident  truths  of  calculating  egoism,  and  makes  a  last 
tribunal  and   a   final   appeal    out   of   conscious   intelligence, 
determined  to  sweep  away  all  lumber  of  the  past,  to  live  in 


156    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

the  clear  light  of  transparent  motive,  to  make  the  best  of  the 
good  world,  which  had  been  so  long  perverted  or  misconstrued, 
and  to  train  up  to  the  same  happy  use  of  occasion  the  less 
privileged  and  less  alert  by  the  wholesome  discipline  of 
parental  government. 

§  2.  We  can  easily  detect  the  source  of  these  conceptions. 
In  the  reaction  against  a  clerical  tutelage,  before  the  great  rift 
came  which  to-day  cuts  life  into  independent  fragments,  men 
reverted  to  classical  ideals,  to  an  aristocratic  scheme  of  govern- 
ment, to  detailed  legislation  for  purely  secular  ends,  to  the 
extinction  of  the  now  rival  spirit  of  religion  or  its  complete 
subordination  beneath  civil  authority.  "Sometimes,"  says 
Mr.  Willert,  in  a  study  of  the  French  Renaissance  (note. 
Quarterly  Review ^  April  1906),  "Sometimes  Montaigne 
asserts,  like  Rousseau,  that  our  reason  and  our  civilisation 
have  corrupted  our  lives ;  and  yet,  like  the  followers  of 
Rousseau,  he  believes  that  human  nature  may  be  improved 
by  regulation  and  careful  training.  The  laws  of  Lycurgus 
were,  he  observes,  well  nigh  miraculous  in  their  perfection. 
This  belief  in  the  omnipotence  of  the  legislator  was  one  of 
the  most  momentous  of  the  ideas  of  antiquity  handed  down 
by  the  Renaissance  to  the  men  of  the  Revolution."  The 
ancient  king  or  judge  might  content  himself  with  interpreting 
the  tribal  custom  or  reviving  its  forgotten  sanctions,  but 
the  new  State  authority  (supposed  to  centre  in  the  alert,  the 
discerning,  the  methodical)  knew  no  limits.  "Give  me  the 
children,  and  in  a  few  years  I  will  transform  the  world  " ;  and 
have  not  all  Utopias  been  founded  on  the  certain  effect  of 
rational  principle  applied  to  the  now  vagrant  and  disorderly 
methods  of  social  life?  Being  abstract  and  typical,  the  re- 
forming ideas  of  the  Enlightenment  seemed  fit  for  universal 
application.  In  the  homogeneous  society  of  the  reading  and 
educated  public  throughout  the  eighteenth  century,  in  the  Con- 
tractual Constitutionalism  which  replaced  parental  despotism 
and  promised  to  end  war  (that  'sport  of  princes'),  there 
seems  to  be  a  foretaste  or  a  guarantee  of  the  dream  of  a 
cosmopolitan  Federation,  at  least  of  a  States  -  General  of 
Europe.  We  know  how  rudely  disappointed  were  these  hopes 
by  the  emergence  of  a  new  element  which,  perilous  alike  in 
its  wonted  lethargy  and  its  intermittent  fury,  we  seek  to-day 


REASON  AND  INSTINCT  157 

to  pacify,  to  control,  and  to  educate.  Yet  how  often  this 
attempt  has,  in  the  absence  of  fixed  principles,  declined  into 
a  mere  watchful  opportunism,  and  how  ill-assorted  is  the 
actual  necessity  for  such  and  such  concession  to  popular 
feeling,  and  the  arguments  and  theories  set  forth  to  justify 
the  surrender! 

§  3.  The  human  studies  in  the  last  century  were  conducted 
on  altogether  different  lines.  Scientific  method  was  perhaps 
for  the  first  time  applied  to  human  history  and  progress ;  and 
this  means  simply  and  solely  that  facts  were  examined  and  no 
questions  asked — that  is,  no  principles  involved.  There  was 
no  change  in  the  ultimate  standard  of  utility  (in  the  last  re- 
sort egoistic),  but  there  was  a  patient  search  into  custom,  use, 
and  value,  which  was  quite  foreign  to  the  ipse  dixit  and 
clear  logic  of  the  Age  of  Reason.  It  is  impossible  to  deny 
here  the  direct  influence  of  the  French  Revolution  and  its 
natural  and  necessary  climax,  the  Empire. 

Vague  will  and  impulse  upsetting  the  philosophic  house  of 
cards — vague  will,  at  last  embodied  in  the  *  world-spirit  on 
horseback  ' — subterranean  forces  long  held  in  check  rushed  to 
the  front,  and  became  intelligible  only  when  the  sage  con- 
descended to  study  history,  recognise  development  in  nation 
as  in  nature,  and  restrict  his  province  to  accumulating  fact  and 
holding  back  theory  until,  like  Fichte's  system,  it  became  *  sun- 
clear,'  unmistakable.  It  will  be  shown  how  the  term  Reason 
lingered  on  for  a  time  to  cover  the  Life-Force  and  its  mani- 
festations. But  this  Reason  is  totally  unconscious  and  knows 
no  purpose.  Its  study  involves  no  theory  of  values,  no 
recognition  of  moral  aim  (for  man  or  universe);  merely,  as 
with  science,  a  plain  statement  that  '  whatever  is,  is,'  with  all 
the  naive  solemnity  of  Parmenides  ;  and  that  the  series  or 
stages  by  which  a  nation,  man,  or  universe  reached  a  present 
condition  were  discoverable  by  patient  search.  Man's  in- 
telligence could  retrace  the  steps  of  the  creative  energy,  and, 
in  a  sense  no  one  can  deny,  the  real  was  the  Rational,  and 
the  Rational  the  real.  But  this  is  not  the  Rational  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  but  a  word  which  covers  totally  distinct 
conceptions.  Hitherto  the  term  had  always  implied  a  certain 
dualism,  an  Aristotelian  vov%  working  on  matter,  as  creative 
God,  or  as  moral  agent,  or  as   calculating  student.      But  it 


158  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

becomes  of  a  sudden  all-inclusive,  and  embraces  everything  in 
heaven  and  earth.  It  is  supposed  by  a  certain  party  that  it  is 
a  philosophical  achievement  and  act  of  creditable  daring,  to 
call  the  sum  of  things  God.  But  if  we  ask  what  is  gained 
by  this  comprehension,  no  satisfactory  reply  is  forthcoming. 
We  are  made  to  do  violence  to  a  popular  prejudice  of  separa- 
tion, which  is  perhaps  insurmountable;  and  we  at  once 
extinguish  all  standard  of  values.  It  is  mere  human  conceit, 
and  a  mode  of  the  old  geocentric  error,  to  take  for  granted 
the  unfailing  correspondence  of  thought  and  things.  The 
totality  must  always  remain  inaccessible ;  even  the  very 
name  universe,  unity,  is  a  convenience  of  subjective  thought, 
a  '  concretion  in  discourse '  for  practical  purposes,  and  so  out- 
side the  region  of  strict  proof.  Let  it  not  be  supposed  that 
speculation  has  derived  anything  but  benefit  from  the  bold 
design  and  partial  achievement  of  the  Neo-Kantians ;  but 
we  learn  even  more  from  its  errors,  and  have  been  finally  con- 
vinced that  such  summary  and  comprehensive  formula  can 
never  issue  from  human  lips,  can  never  suit  the  manifold  and 
manifest  interests  of  human  life. 

§  4.  The  believer  may  assert  that  every  detail  of  natural 
sequence,  every  human  act  and  circumstance,  is  controlled  by 
Divine  Providence ;  just  so  the  Idealist  may  regard  every  step 
in  the  process  as  the  direct  outcome  of  the  immanent  Aoyos. 
Both  are  to  a  great  extent  mere  ventures  of  faith^  and  not 
on  that  account  disqualified  from  influence  in  the  practical 
sphere.  But  it  may  well  be  questioned  with  what  right  such 
summary  solution  is  admissible  in  the  realm  of  pure  theory 
or  pure  science. 

In  the  former  we  have  (and  we  need  to  have)  a  working 
standard  of  values;  in  the  latter,  strictly  speaking,  we  have 
none  at  all.  As  final  causes  made  science  sterile  for  ages, 
and  drove  all  would-be  honest  doubt  and  study  to  a  lazy 
asylum,  so  the  comprehension  of  all  phenomena  under  the 
very  definite  title  Reason  leads  to  a  quiet  acquiescence  in 
the  actual,  which  is  the  very  reverse  of  human  practice,  and 
the  denial  (if  we  may  use  the  word)  of  human  duty.  The 
attempt  to  sum  up  the  universe  (so  far  as  it  was  then  known) 
in  terms  of  a  single  side  of  man's  spiritual  life  proved  a  failure. 
As  we  shall  trace  subsequently,  will  was  accepted  quite  early 


REASON  AND  INSTINCT  159 

in  the  century  as  more  comprehensive,  less  loaded  with  im- 
plications of  conscious  adaptation  to  a  beneficent  end.  The 
use  of  the  term  was  a  mere  survival;  its  disuse  marks  the 
close  of  the  new  Mediaevalism.  The  formula  of  Hegel  is 
naively  humanistic;  the  growing  school  of  inductive  science 
in  all  departments  of  search  disparaged  the  prerogative  of 
man,  his  pretensions  to  omniscience  without  the  troublesome 
effort  to  ascertain.  Some  attacked,  in  the  interests  of  man, 
the  blind  vital  force  which  brought  him  forth  to  a  life  of  pain. 
How  long  the  old  reverent  attitude  of  theology  lingered  is 
clear  from  Hartmann's  curious  language  about  the  Uncon- 
scious ;  side  by  side  with  a  real  desire  to  correct  its  errors  he 
parades  its  Divine  qualities,  its  all-wisdom.  But  the  process 
of  'defecation  to  complete  transparency'  was  by  no  means 
terminated.  Infinite  Energy,  the  Unknowable,  became 
favourite  terms.  A  belated  attempt  marked  one  English 
writer  to  unite  it  once  more  to  a  moral  purpose — 'a  Power 
not  ourselves  which  makes  for  righteousness ' — then  came  the 
final  dualism  of  a  well-known  school  in  our  own  country, 
scientifically  accurate,  morally  indignant,  which  bids  man 
defy  the  Cosmic  Process,  as  the  condition  of  his  progress  and 
nobility. 

§  5.  This  de-qualifying  tendency  takes  then  the  opposite 
path  to  the  early  Greek  schools.  Beginning  with  infinitude 
and  evolution,  expressed  in  the  terms  though  lacking  the 
evidence  of  modern  science,  the  Greek  mind  introduced 
into  the  source  of  life  or  withheld  from  its  definition  those 
qualities  which  seemed  most  akin  to  human  nature.  The 
illimitable  horizon  of  Ionia  narrowed  down  into  a  small  but 
restless  city-state,  where  man  was  the  '  measure  of  all  things.' 
Sophist  and  Socrates  alike  mark  a  protest  against  immersion 
in  the  Absolute,  the  claim  for  individual  worth  which  con- 
templation so  reluctantly  concedes.  The  latter  especially 
approaches  close  to  familiar  religious  tradition,  and  the  sense 
of  particular  providence  and  a  definite  post  or  station  allotted 
to  each  earthly  sentinel.  Plato,  who  severs  this  intimate 
personal  connection,  reserves  for  the  philosopher  an  esoteric 
belief  in  an  impersonal  goodness,  which  also  binds  together 
all  things  in  heaven  and  earth  and  gives  each  its  due. 
Aristotle  gives  to  the  Source  of  life  and  motion  the  quality  of 


i6o    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

pure  Thought ;  and  in  effect  his  system  lends  more  countenance 
than  he  imagined  to  dualism  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine 
transcendence.  We  need  not  here  try  to  trace  the  evaporation 
of  this  pious  belief.  Humanism,  'man  the  measure  of  all 
things,'  lost  favour  rapidly.  Semitic  and  Phenician  influences 
stifled  and  overwhelmed  the  sense  of  individual  originality, 
value,  and  independence.  The  decay  of  civic  zeal,  the  lively 
give  and  take  of  equals,  was  either  a  cause  or  an  eflect.  The 
wise,  and  certainly  the  more  useful,  members  of  society  gave 
up  (as  the  English  School  to-day)  the  visible  world  to  the 
mechanical  play  of  the  fortuitous,  reducible,  nevertheless,  to 
a  sort  of  order;  and  found  in  refined  social  intercourse  a 
substitute  for  the  older  activities.  Modern  thought  has 
followed  the  course  of  post-Aristotelian  development  rather 
than  the  earlier  stages,  from  unqualified  ground  to  theistic 
prime  mover.  In  our  day  the  downward  grade  has  reached 
its  final  point.  But  we  may  note  that  the  too  modest  pro- 
fession, 'the  Real  is  the  Unknowable,'  is  as  far  from  the 
truth  as  the  too  complacent,  '  the  Real  is  the  Rational.'  In 
trying  to  ascertain  for  our  own  uses  the  world-purpose,  it  is 
neither  nothing,  nor  yet  again  everything,  to  be  able  to  trace 
the  sequence  of  its  phenomena. 

§  6.  By  '  instinct '  we  mean  quite  generally  the  original 
equipment,  the  native  impulses  of  human  nature,  all  that 
unreflected  and  marvellous  fabric  of  complex  language,  social 
custom,  individual  motive,  to  which  personal  and  conscious 
legislator  or  grammarian,  calm  and  rational  calculation,  has 
contributed  so  little.  In  spite  of  the  Idealist,  there  is  the 
world  ready  to  hand,  in  system,  order,  and  life,  before  the  soul 
of  man  (as  self-conscious  intelligence)  peered  forth  timidly  upon 
the  scene.  It  is  but  the  habitual  humanism  or  personalism 
of  our  methods  that  seeks  to  derive,  like  Athena  in  full 
panoply,  in  place  of  natural  development,  all  State  institutions 
from  a  Divine  and  infallible  Lawgiver.  Constantly  are  we 
reminded  by  students  of  primitive  man  that  the  chief  or  the 
body  of  elders  never  lay  claim  to  initiate  legislation  (in  the 
modern  sense),  only  to  explain  and  interpret  custom,  in 
itself  sacred,  binding,  and  unquestionable.  Heavy  upon 
savage  life  is  the  dead  hand  of  tribal  usage.  Westermarck's 
and  similar  inquiries,   however  we   may  hesitate    to  accept 


REASON  AND  INSTINCT  i6i 

all  their  conclusions,  seem  at  least  to  prove  beyond  doubt 
the  austere  morality  of  early  man,  which  in  many  points 
would  set  an  example  to  Christian  and  civilised  society;  his 
strict  devotion  to  ancestral  routine,  not  wholly  to  be  explained 
by  selfish  fear  of  consequences,  and  combining  much  of  that 
disinterested  public  spirit  which  to-day  we  discuss  so  much 
and  find  so  seldom.  It  is  not  a  little  curious  to  notice  that 
many  so-called  wild  dreams,  unattainable  Utopias  of  social 
reform,  merely  contemplate  a  reversion  to  this  type;  for  the 
perfectly  moralised  State  of  Mr.  Spencer,  our  modern 
automatic  educationalism,  the  French  attempts  to  teach  civic 
duties  apart  from  religious  sanction,  the  *  instinctive '  morality 
of  Mr.  Samuel  Laing  (to  note  one  popular  author  out  of  many 
who  is  confident  in  the  irresistible  force  of  common  opinion 
and  uniform  training) — all  these  are  strictly  indiscernible  from 
the  unquestioning  civic  faith  and  loyalty  of  savage  tribes. 
But  the  solvent  of  modern  thought  is  sophistic,  critical,  and 
rebellious;  and  it  is  only  by  a  certain  timid  illogicality  that 
the  champions  of  the  particular  reason  and  free  conscience 
can  surrender  the  treasure  when  found  to  State-welfare  and 
autocracy. 

§  7.  Into  many  of  our  subordinate  discussions  must  this 
antithesis  intrude :  of  reflected  and  spontaneous  action.  For 
our  very  practical  purpose,  it  matters  nothing  whether  this 
latter  be  the  outcome  of  centuries  of  careful  training,  of 
parental  example,  of  inherited  sensitiveness  to  another's  pain 
(as  more  than  half  our  own);  or  whether  we  accord  to  the 
primitive  unit  a  sense  of  duty  to  convention  irrespective 
of  the  personal  cost  of  obedience.  Even  to  this  age,  so 
eager  to  trace  the  vestiges  of  early  civilisation,  to  read  some- 
how in  the  startled  eyes,  the  abrupt  grasp,  the  rudimentary 
emotions,  passions,  motives  of  childhood,  some  secret  of  pre- 
historic man — even  to  us  the  real  origins  lie  back  buried  in 
profound  obscurity.  We  are  astonished  at  the  intricacy,  the 
detail,  the  complexity  of  their  modes  of  life;  and  the  more 
prolonged  our  study,  the  more  sensible  we  become  of  their 
high  moral  restraint,  of  the  unseen  control  exercised  upon 
intermittent  passion.  It  may  safely  be  said  that  there  is  no 
likelihood  of  the  reimposition  of  a  code  of  behaviour  so 
rigorous  and  exacting  on  the  youth  and  manhood  of  to-day. 
II 


1 62    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

Moral  inquiry  is  with  us  coolly  sceptical,  inquisitive,  and  largely 
destructive.  Systems  seem  to  work  laboriously  towards  the 
enunciation  of  a  truism,  in  many  cases  amounting  to  the 
mere  uninstructive  tautology,  "  it  is  right  to  do  what  is  right," — 
leaving  ambiguous  the  sanction  of  the  former  use  to  indi- 
vidual judgment,  the  content  of  the  latter  to  common  con- 
ventional usage,  often  to  the  code  of  some  expelled  or 
disparaged  creed.  And  to  many  (as  we  have  seen 
already)  the  sole  hope  for  any  uniform  morality  devoted  to 
the  recognised  purpose,  the  *  welfare  of  the  State,'  would 
appear  to  lie  in  a  frank  denial  of  free-will,  in  a  careful  system 
of  breeding  and  training  of  healthy  young  animals ;  deceived, 
when  they  reach  a  questioning  and  sophistic  maturity,  by  some 
*  rulers'  lie,'  some  noble  but  necessary  untruth.  As  a  matter 
of  everyday  experience,  man's  instinct  is  far  more  social  than 
any  reflected  code  of  morality,  and  needs  but  encouragement, 
but  emphasis,  rather  on  the  beauty  than  on  the  obligation  of 
holiness. 

§  8.  When  Professor  Sidgwick  states  his  moral  axiom, 
•*I  ought  not  to  prefer  my  own  lesser  good  to  the  greater 
good  of  another,"  we  are  not  merely  concerned  with  the 
vagueness  of  every  term  employed,  and  especially  of  the  last, 
but  are  rather  surprised  that  the  change  from  spontaneous 
to  reflecting  morality  should  accomplish  so  little.  It  is 
certainly  not  a  *  counsel  of  perfection,'  an  exacting  standard. 
The  uncalculating  usage  of  the  poor  is  far  in  advance  of  this 
modest  demand,  and  popular  achievement  is  usually  ahead 
of  rational  schemes  of  'duty.'  Calculation  (fatal  to  moral 
fervour)  must  enter  to  compute  the  balance  of  '  goods ' ;  and 
the  ambiguity  of  *  another '  (the  Gospel  question,  '  Who  is  my 
neighbour  ? ')  is  fatal  to  full  understanding.  If  by  *  another '  is 
meant  merely  a  co-partner  in  a  visible  moral  community, 
endowed  with  a  moral  consciousness  as  developed  as  my  own, 
a  fellow  and  comrade  in  the  art  or  business  of  life,  it  may 
safely  be  said  that  the  average  miner,  peasant,  artisan  acts, 
though  he  know  it  not,  on  principles  altogether  '  higher,'  and 
with  less  reference  to  self.  As  we  are  concerned  with  the 
actual  practice  of  man,  we  will  here  only  point  out,  that  in  the 
very  nature  of  the  case  all  moral  rules  must  lag  behind  the 
famiUar  yet  unnoticed  level  of  observance.      In  the  field  of 


REASON  AND  INSTINCT  163 

conduct,  Reason,  with  its  perpetual  summons  of  every  institu- 
tion, principle,  or  impulse  before  its  own  tribunal,  must  act 
rather  as  a  sedative  to  endeavour  than  a  stimulus.  Prescribing 
universally,  it  can  only  dictate  a  minimum  ;  and  extending 
the  circle  of  *  neighbourhood '  into  a  vague  cosmopolitan 
sentiment,  it  deprives  the  ethical  emotions  of  their  firm  base 
in  that  instinctive  homage  to  the  good  person,  that  unfailing 
sympathy  with  others,  that  love  of  justice  redressing  the 
balance  by  amend  and  punishment,  which  is  certainly  not 
learnt  except  in  the  school  of  home  and  social  training,  and 
of  which  books  of  professed  ethical  insight  give,  Hke  mediaeval 
Rationalism,  so  inadequate  a  justification.  It  would  be 
unbecoming  to  foretell  hastily  that  no  ethical  system  can 
explain  the  most  familiar  experience ;  but  it  is  well  to  remind 
ourselves  now  and  again  of  the  scanty  results,  of  the  falsified 
pretensions  of  independent  moral  studies.  This  problem  must 
in  the  sequel  recur  in  many  other  forms ;  here  it  will  for  the 
present  suffice  to  sum  up  our  results :  the  prevailing  tendency 
is  to  employ  the  inductive  method,  to  interrogate  human 
records  as  we  interrogate  (since  the  Baconian  reform)  natural 
sequence,  without  prepossession.  Moral  conduct  is  as  much 
an  established  fact  as  the  uniformity  of  nature.  Whether  man 
is  free  or  not,  but  a  mere  creature  and  pensioner  of  the  past, 
it  is  not  our  part  to  inquire.  We  are  contented  to  find  among 
the  lowest  races  the  same  rudiments  of  moral  behaviour  and 
cheerful  service,  without  thought  of  self,  as  we  try  to  discover 
and  to  encourage  amongst  ourselves.  But  it  is  significant  that, 
true  to  the  pessimistic  conceptions  of  man  after  the  Reforma- 
tion, modern  reflection  seems  to  have  a  far  humbler  estimate 
than  experience  warrants.  Nay,  in  proposing  as  a  distinct 
feature  of  modern  ethics  (perhaps  a  distinct  advance)  the 
notion  of  '  bounden  duty '  and  of  '  obligation,'  a  curious  legalism 
without  judge  or  penalty  has  been  introduced,  with  the  same 
mischief  that  marked  Anselm's  juristic  explanation  of  the 
Atonement.  Appeal  to  what  we  term  '  nobler '  or  '  more 
generous'  instincts,  implies  appeal  to  the  freedom  (shall  we 
say  to  the  aesthetic  sense?)  of  average  man.  "I  am  too 
proud,"  says  Heine,  "to  be  influenced  by  greed  for  the 
heavenly  wages  of  virtue,  ox  by  fear  of  hellish  torments.  I 
strive  after  the  good  because  it  is  beautiful  and  attracts  me 


1 64    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

irresistibly;  and  I  abominate  the  bad  because  it  is  hateful 
and  repugnant  to  me."  We  can  tutor,  but  we  cannot  implant. 
The  basis  of  moral  conduct  is,  and  must  always  remain, 
immediate,  emotional. 


MEDIiEVAL  InTELLECTUALISM   AND   THE   OPPOSITION 

§  T.  Threefold  work  of  a  Religion  :  {i)  as  social  institution :  (2)  per' 
sonal  and  attested  solace  :  (3)  as  field  for  searchers  after  Truth  : 
intellectual  basis  stands  then  only  in  the  third  place  :  use  and  value 
not  apodictic  certainty. 

§  2.  Truth  {to  mean  anything)  must  be  my  truth  :  the  witness  to 
a  Religion  is  corporate  tradition  and  personal  use  rather  than  argu- 
ment :  intellectual  apologetic  cannot  recognise  this  :  scholastic  argu- 
ments are  addressed  to  reason  in  general :  articulate  philosophy  a 
surface-Justification  for  a  deep  conviction. 

§  3.  y4  dogmatic  system  an  indispensable  development,  but  not 
wholly  a  gain  :  in  the  same  way,  Church  government  as  a  visible 
institution  :  Augustine,  hands  down  Roman  discipline  and  Greek 
speculation  :  twofold  aspect  of  MedicBval  Church  :  a  protective, 
coercive  society,  and  a  mystical  asylum  :  a  special  caste  investigated 
truth  :  the  people  were  bound  to  obedience. 

§  4.  ^  uthority  and  wisdom  of  right  belongs  to  the  Hierarchy : 
true  Religion,  true  philosophy,  identical :  this  the  basis  of  the  whole 
development :  in  Reason  lies  man's  kinship  to  the  Divine :  primacy 
of  Reason  recognised  everywhere. 

§  5.  Independent  inquiry  found  not  to  lead  invariably  to  orthodox 
conclusions :  reaction  against  freethought  in  the  thirteenth  century  : 
new  view,  dogma  a  mystery  :  recognition  of  truths  which  admitted, 
and  did  not  admit,  of  rational  proof ;  Aquinas  supplements  the  uni- 
versal {Aristotelian)  with  a  special  Christian  superstructure  :  even 
this,  strictly  classical  and  philosophical ;  '  to  reach  God,  ecstasy,  not 
reason.* 

§  6.  Merit  of  Scholastic  Logic  :  an  attempt  to  make  '  the  Church's 
truth  mine  '  :  not  as  Islam,  acquiesce  idly  in  mere  arbitrary  will : 
the  Reason  which  they  proposed  to  satisfy  became  more  and  more 
human  and  personal  in  the  widening  of  the  sphere  of  enlightenment 
from  palace  {ninth  century).  Monastery  {tenth  and  eleventh), 
University  {twelfth).  Mendicant  orders  {thirteenth) :  the  individual 
more  prominent  :   the  long  line  of  mystics  had  always  borne  witness. 

§  7.  Ascent  from  the  negative  and  minimum  requirement  of  Law  to 
sense  of  personal  duty :  reinforced  by  emotion  :  test  of  truth  experience, 
love  given  and  returned  :  as  the  '  credenda  '  were  one  by  one  removed 


MEDIEVAL  INTELLECTUALISM      165 

from  sphere  of  intellect,  belief  founded  more  and  more  on  inner  convic- 
tion :  Intellectualism  gradually  undermined  :  curious  catastrophe  of  the 
Reformed  Churches — relapsing  into  the  very  error  from  which  their 
movement  was  a  reaction. 

§  I.  Every  religion  addresses  itself  to  the  social  or  the 
individual  consciousness  of  its  adherents ;  it  is  either  a  time- 
honoured  institution  with  which   the  life   of  the  community 
is  intimately  bound  up ;  or  a  proved  source  of  peace,  knowledge, 
or  moral  strength.     That  which  we  might  wish  to  put  in  the 
forefront,  the  personal  appeal,  as  the  indispensable  condition 
of  all  true  faith,  as  a  matter  of  fact  is  found  either  seldom  or 
only  secondarily  in  long-established  cults  of  national  worship. 
Compliance   and  conformity,   where    so    much   is   dark   and 
obscure  to  the  groping  intelligence,  seems  the  wiser  course ; 
and  it  is  not  uncommon  to  see  a  wave  of  zealous  reaction 
revive  confidence  in  a  Church  just  at  a  time  when  its  entire 
dogmatic  structure  seems  to  totter.     It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  religion  embodied  in  a  visible  community  plays  a  three- 
fold part :  it  actually  does  perform  an  important  function  in 
society,  with  which,  it  may  seem,  no  other  institution  could  be 
charged ;  it  does  without  doubt  satisfy  (from  various  motives  of 
experienced  safety  or  peace   or  spiritual  intercourse)  a  large 
number  of  believers,  with  whom  personal  religion,  we  might 
say,  has  superseded  mere  social  convention  or  vague  respect 
for  antiquity;  and  lastly,  and   only  lastly,  it  has  to   provide 
for  a  slender  proportion  of  friends  or  foes,  for  earnest  seekers 
after  Truth,  a  justification  of  the  peculiar  dogmas  it  inculcates, 
the  special  promises  it  professes  to  reveal.     The  intellectual 
interest  of  Religion  which  we  call  Apologetic,  stands  therefore 
in  the  third   place.     The  survival   of  a  particular  creed  will 
only  in  a  lesser  degree   depend   on  this  satisfaction  of  the 
cautious  and  critical  reason.     Whatever  of  peril  may  be  thought 
to  lurk  in  the  consequences,  whatever  weakness  of  dialectical 
harness  may  be  found  in  the  arguments  of  Professor  James 
(Varieties  of  Religious  Experience)^  it  cannot  be  doubtful  as 
a  historical  fact  that  "the  gods  we  stand  by  are  the  gods 
we  need  and  use ;  that   religions  which  have  approved  them- 
selves  ministered   to    sundry  vital   needs;   that    no   religion 
ever  yet  owed  its  prevalence  to  apodictic  certainty."     "  If  we 
claim,"  he  says,  "any  reasonable  probability,  it  will  be  as  much 


1 66    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

as  men  who  love  the  truth  can  ever  at  any  given  moment 
hope  to  have  within  their  grasp."  He  is  quite  aware  that 
"dogmatism  will  continue  to  condemn  him  for  this  confes- 
sion; mere  outward  form  of  unalterable  certainty  is  so 
precious  to  some  minds."  But  he  represents  the  large  and 
increasing  number  of  those  who  shrink  from  the  arrogance 
which  is  as  unfitting  as  pure  scepticism  to  human  nature : 
"  Rather  do  I  fear  to  lose  Truth  by  this  pretension  to  possess 
it  already  wholly." 

§  2.  If  truth  is  to  mean  anything  to  me,  it  must  be  my 
truth ;  truth  within  my  powers  of  apprehension  and  in  relation 
to  certain  of  my  cherished  aspirations.  To  these  it  cannot 
be  entirely  dumb  and  indifferent ;  or  as  with  the  recognition 
of  the  calculable  uniformity  of  matter  and  its  modes,  or  of  an 
infinite  and  incomprehensible  deity,  I  pass  on  in  quest  of 
some  more  relative  and  sympathetic  aid.  It  cannot  be  too 
often  repeated  that  in  human  life  it  is  the  provisional,  the 
exceptional,  that  is  of  interest:  the  stable,  the  ultimate,  the 
final — are  they  ever  within  our  reach  ?  The  Universal  type,  say 
of  Stoic  Sage,  ceases  to  attract  or  to  influence  us  just  because  of 
its  universality.  Faded  and  attenuated,  such  an  ideal  is  either 
something  uninteresting  and  apart,  or  (in  the  desire  of  its  creators 
to  banish  anything  that  seems  lofty  or  pretentious)  it  provides 
us  with  a  minimum  below  average  practice.  The  Truth,  then, 
of  a  Religion  is  partly  vouched  for  by  the  corporate  testimony 
of  a  society,  by  unbroken  tradition  (to  this  it  is  not  likely 
in  the  twentieth  century  we  shall  fail  to  do  justice),  partly  to 
the  witness  of  individual  experience  of  use  and  worth.  Now 
intellectual  apologetic  cannot  condescend  to  this  latter,  and  still 
more  cannot  be  induced  to  recognise  the  complexity  of  the 
former — its  refusal  to  be  bound  by  a  single  set  of  rules,  its 
carelessness  of  *  apodictic  certainty.'  "  It  cannot  occur,"  says 
Kaftan,  in  his  Truth  of  the  Christian  Religion ^  "to  the 
Schoolmen  to  consider  the  proofs  chiefly  in  relation  to  the 
personal  faith  of  the  individual.  God  deals  with  the  in- 
dividual through  the  Church.  It  is  important  only  that  the 
Authority  of  the  Church  should  be  justified  in  the  sight  of 
Reason  in  general."  It  is  indeed  a  very  cold  and  detached 
impersonal  reason  that  is  satisfied  with  scholastic  arguments. 
Nominalism  (as  we  have  remarked)  disparages  not  the  objective 


MEDIAEVAL  INTELLECTUALISM       167 

truth  of  the  *  credenda,'  but  the  subjective  supports,  which  are 
beneath  its  level  in  dignity.  To  quote  Mr.  James  once  more : 
"  If  you  have  intuitions  at  all,  they  come  from  a  deeper  level 
of  your  nature  than  the  loquacious  level  which  Rationalism 
inhabits.  ...  Its  inferiority  in  founding  belief  is  just  as 
manifest  when  it  argues  for  religion  as  when  it  argues  against 
it."  He  believes  such  proofs  and  evidences  are  a  surface- 
justification  to  account  somehow,  and  very  imperfectly,  for  a 
conviction  based  elsewhere :  "  Articulate  reasons  in  the  meta- 
physical and  religious  sphere  are  cogent  for  us  only  when  our 
inarticulate  feelings  of  Reality  have  already  been  impressed 
in  favour  of  the  same  conclusions."  The  great  world-ruling 
systems.  Buddhistic  or  Catholic,  grow  up  "  when  intuitions  and 
reasons  work  together."  "Our  impulsive  belief  is  here  always 
what  sets  up  the  original  body  of  Truth,  and  our  articulately 
verbalised  philosophy  is  but  its  showy  translation  into  formula. 
The  unreasoned  and  immediate  assurance  is  the  deep  thing  in 
us ;  the  reasoned  argument  is  but  a  surface-exhibition." 

§  3.  While  some  have  identified  Religion  with  a  social  in- 
stitution, the  last  and  most  effective  police  supervision  for  the 
secret  movements  of  the  citizen, — in  a  word,  with  mere  morality 
and  customary  observance, — others  have  disengaged  it  from 
all  worldly  contact  and  utilitarian  purpose,  and  made  its  aims 
those  of  Idealist  philosophy.  But  Religion  is  neither  a  depart- 
ment of  the  State  nor  the  material  of  speculative  thought. 
It  is  perhaps  to  be  regretted  that  it  has  to  clothe  itself  with  a 
material  and  organised  life  in  the  State,  borrowing  much  if  not 
all  from  its  ancient  foe.  It  is  an  indispensable  development, 
yet  by  no  means  wholly  a  gain,  when  a  dogmatic  and  dialectical 
system  grows  up  to  guard  the  narrow  line  of  orthodoxy  within 
and  to  explain  and  justify  to  the  candid  critic  without.  It 
was  the  liberality  rather  than  the  narrowness  of  the  Church 
which  led  to  the  predominance  of  Hellenism.  The  completed 
scheme  of  Church  government  and  philosophy  which  Augustine 
handed  down,  the  Mediaeval  Church,  is  a  compound  of  Roman 
legalism  and  Greek  speculation.  Moving  in  distinct  spheres, 
the  one  begins  where  the  other  leaves  off;  just  as  the  Super- 
natural enters  to  complete  the  Natural.  The  twofold  aspect 
of  the  Church  becomes  intelligible :  a  strong,  protective,  and 
if  need   be  coercive  State;  and  an  asylum  for  the  abstract 


1 68    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

philosopher,  the  mystical  enthusiast.  From  Rome  it  borrowed 
the  secular  aim,  a  sort  of  democratic  utilitarianism,  which  pro- 
vides for  the  mass  a  precise  system  of  conduct  and  belief, 
not  lacking  in  shrewd  and  sympathetic  adjustments  to  individual 
needs.  In  spite  of  its  professed  absolutism,  the  unlimited  pre- 
rogative of  the  hierarchy,  this  State  is  very  kindly  and  bene- 
ficent; it  modifies  by  judicious  compromise  its  universal 
claims ;  it  is  content,  not  indeed,  like  its  prototype,  with  a  few 
grains  of  incense,  but  with  a  modicum  of  outward  submission. 
It  spends  infinite  pains  on  attempts  to  convince,  and  never 
condemns  except  in  view  of  individual  salvation  or  the  State 
need  (not  seriously  contradicted  to-day)  of  stamping  out  a 
viperous  brood  or  a  dangerous  heresy.  Into  the  secrets  of 
dogma  the  vulgar  were  neither  expected  nor  encouraged  to 
penetrate.  Like  the  Chinese  in  relation  to  their  mandarin 
class,  whose  powers  they  regard  without  envy,  the  average 
Christian  felt  himself  dispensed  from  a  fruitless  personal  quest, 
because  there  existed  a  special  caste,  whose  duties  lay  just  in 
that  intricate  labyrinth  where  he  felt  no  inclination  to  enter. 
The  whole  history  of  mediaeval  development  centres  round 
the  relation  of  Authority  and  Reason,  or,  in  other  words,  of 
faith  and  knowledge.  The  widespread  deference  to  Authority, 
the  Alexandrine  interpretation  of  Faith  (as  surrender  to  the 
wise  guidance  of  the  expert),  was  a  testimony  to  the  honesty 
of  the  hierarchy ;  of  that  governing  class  or  caste  which  every 
Utopian  idealist,  when  he  reconstructs  society,  seeks  to  create 
for  the  close  supervision  of  the  still  (and  ever?)  dependent 
multitude. 

§  4.  Authority  and  wisdom  belonged  of  right  to  the  hier- 
archy. For  the  obvious  fact  that  average  man  could  not 
guide  his  thought  or  conduct  aright,  an  explanation  was 
found  in  original  sin,  the  corruption  of  reason.  The  canon 
of  behaviour  must  be  imposed  from  without;  the  secrets  of 
dogmatic  truths  must  be  accepted  on  trust.  But  definitely 
intellectualist  as  was  the  Mediaeval  Church,  there  was  nothing 
like  the  permanent  separation  of  clerk  and  layman  such  as  we 
find  in  Brahminic  India.  Many  truths  could  be  discovered 
on  the  path  of  unaided  reason ;  iust  as  many  were  ascertained 
only  by  listening  to  Authority.  I  The  optimistic  belief  at  the 
bottom  of  all  their  thought  and  development  was  the  Platonic 


MEDIAEVAL  INTELLECTUALISM       169 

unity  of  things — a  unity  with  steps,  series,  and  gradations, 
but  never  interrupted  by  a  sudden  leap,  by  an  impassable 
gulf.  When  we  issue  out  of  the  three  almost  silent  centuries 
into  the  Carolingian  revival,  we  have  at  once  in  full  panoply 
the  genial  system  of  Erigena.  It  was  to  him  inconceivable 
that  an  ultimate  discord  should  separate  Divine  and  human 
knowledge.  True  Religion,  as  he  tells  us  in  the  Predestina- 
tion no  less  than  in  the  Division  of  Nature^  and  true 
philosophy  are  interchangeable  terms.  With  far  more  sig- 
nificance than  Lactantius  he  asserts  this  axiom,  on  which 
the  mediaeval  development  is  wholly  based.  Like  Lessing, 
he  believed  that  the  Church  teaches  to  the  amazement  of 
the  open-mouthed  and  simple  what  mature  reflection  can 
recognise  as  self-evident.  Gospel  teaching  is  just  rational 
truth,  and  Reason  has  the  primacy ;  we  have  to  state  dogma 
in  a  twofold  way  to  the  unlearned  and  to  the  enlightened. 
Berengarius  shows  almost  a  pious  horror  at  those  who  make 
light  of  Dialectic ;  it  is  incomparably  better  to  appeal  to 
Reason,  for  in  this  consists  man's  kinship  to  the  Divine, 
In  Anselm,  his  arguments  are  proofs  of  reason ;  nowhere  do 
we  see  an  attempt  to  build  articles  of  theology  upon  practice — 
to  -proVide  practical  motives  of  faith.  Reverence  for  Reason 
is  carried  so  far  with  him  that  it  becomes  a  duty  to  seek 
rational  proofs  for  the  *credenda.'  Here  the  judgment  of 
Reason  is  the  final  appeal  even  in  this  zealous  authoritarian  ! 
Indeed,  Anselm,  as  Augustinian  as  Platonist,  is  sure  of  the 
agreement  of  the  two  methods ;  there  will  be  the  same  results 
from  rational  research  and  from  credence  in  legitimate 
authority.  It  is  superfluous  to  mention  Abelard,  the  Broad 
Churchman,  in  this  connection ;  primacy  of  Reason  above 
Authority  is  here  an  axiom;  the  reign  of  Authority  is  due 
merely  to  unreasoning  crowd.  In  the  absence  of  leisure  or 
capacity,  the  fully  developed  dogma  must  be  transmitted  to 
the  mechanical  believer ;  but  the  true  Christian  is  he  who  goes 
over  again  for  himself  the  stages  of  argument  and  dialectic. 
In  a  word,  from  the  Revival  to  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  the  ultimate  primacy  was  given  to  Reason  whether 
explicitly  or  by  implication.  To  the  intelligence  of  man  all 
mysteries  of  the  faith  were  comprehensible.  Reason,  Divine 
and  human,  could  not  in  the  end  be  at  variance. 


170    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

§  5.  Gradually  it  became  apparent  that  independent  research 
did  not  invariably  move  on  the  same  lines  or  arrive  at  the 
same  conclusions.  The  Church  took  alarm.  There  was  a 
reaction  against  freethought  which  culminated  in  the  fruitless 
prohibition  of  Aristotle.  The  authorities  were  indeed  largely 
justified.  "Government,"  says  Hegel,  "belongs  to  the  small 
world  of  officials";  and  those  who  hold  that  the  concrete, 
the  historic,  and  the  continuous  (in  thought  and  institution) 
should  predominate  over  the  clever  and  captious  idiosyncrasy 
of  sophists,  cannot  find  fault  with  the  decision  of  the  Church. 
The  collective  reason  is  pitted  against  the  vain  individual 
reason,  just  as  Heraclitus  had  confronted  them.  Already 
with  Lanfranc  we  see  the  cool  rationalism  of  Anselm  giving 
way  to  a  new  spirit  of  reverence — "  Depart  not  by  a  foot's- 
breadth  from  the  Fathers" — and  we  find  in  him  the  moral 
view  that  dogma  was  a  mystery,  and  however  examined  must 
always  remain  so.  Bernard  represents  a  similar  reaction ; 
even  mystical  rapture,  the  genuinely  intimate  personal  inter- 
course, can  be  won  only  by  surrender  to  Authority ;  just  as, 
even  for  the  highly  gifted  visionary,  the  Director  must  in  the 
last  resort  decide  between  a  true  vision  and  a  hallucination. 
But  to  these  writers  there  was  merely  a  precautionary  bias  in 
favour  of  authority,  in  view  of  the  disorder  of  freethought; 
there  was  no  sense  of  a  profound  rift  between  Divine  and 
human  wisdom  —  there  was  rather  an  *  intrinsic  affinity.' 
Both  individual  reason  and  Church  dogma  were  Hellenic — 
were  based  on  the  classical  idealism  of  antiquity.  With  the 
gradual  increase  of  Aristotelian  influence,  we  note  new  features. 
The  great  systems  recognise  a  division  which  would  have 
seemed  incomprehensible  to  Anselm.  To  him,  the  whole 
of  dogma  was  true  on  speculative  lines ;  while  they  recognised 
truths  which  admit  and  truths  which  did  not  admit  of 
rational  proof,  of  speculative  support.  Some  writers  of  the 
time,  as  Peter  Lombard  and  Alexander  of  Hales,  seem  to 
shrink  from  a  discussion  of  the  provinces  and  relations  of 
reason  and  authority.  Perhaps  the  earliest  to  propound  a 
clear  division  was  Hugh  of  St.  Victor :  there  is  truth  ex 
ratione  and  supra  rationem.  Aquinas  recognises  Hugh 
as  his  master,  rejects  the  ontological  argument  of  Anselm 
(which  is  strictly  dialectical),  and  prefers  the  more  *  concrete '  ^ 


MEDIiEVAL  INTELLECTUALISM      171 

evidence  of  the  world  and  visible  works  of  God  to  any  verbal 
proof.  And  the  whole  tone,  temper,  and  style  of  his  great 
system  is  Aristotelian ;  the  basis  where  reason  and  proof  are 
admissible  has  the  common  features  of  rational  and  moral 
outlook  in  all  ages.  He  supplements  this  (as  has  been  said) 
by  building  on  its  foundations  a  mystical  superstructure — 
the  peculiarly  Christian  dogmas  to  be  learnt  only  from  the 
Church.  Yet  how  permeated  his  mind  was  with  Hellenic 
influence  we  can  see  from  his  doctrine  of  the  Vision  of  God, 
and  of  salvation  through  knowledge.  Here  we  have  classical 
intellectualism,  with  its  inevitable  tendency  towards  ecstasy 
and  supernatural  grace,  in  the  acknowledged  failure  of  ordinary 
faculties  to  reach  God. 

§  6.  What  was  the  merit  of  the  logic  and  dialectic  of  the 
Schoolmen?  Apart  from  its  vain  and  perplexing  subtleties, 
it  was  an  honest  attempt  to  appropriate  truth,  **  to  make  the 
Church's  truth  mine."  The  careful  study  of  Scripture  and 
dogma  taught  men  to  believe  the  Divine  Will  was  not  an 
arbitrary  and  despotic  power,  but  was  intelligible.  It  did 
not  acquiesce  in  mere  power  and  will.  Islam,  for  most  of 
its  converts,  did  so  acquiesce;  and  those  who  sought  to 
penetrate  behind  the  veil  came  back  with  a  curious  spirit  of 
pantheistic  indifference.  But  the  Church  never  abandoned 
the  idea  that  the  Gospel  was  not  a  mere  condition  of  future 
blessedness,  but  was  nearer  akin  to  the  intimate  needs  of  the 
human  soul.  The  logic  and  the  method  at  their  disposal 
might  vary  from  age  to  age,  as  enlightenment  spread  from 
the  palace  to  the  monastery,  from  the  monastery  to  the 
university,  from  the  university  to  the  Mendicant  orders. 
Interest  widened  and  deepened  in  this  process,  and  at  the 
end  the  theologian  came  very  near  common  human  nature. 
For  what  was  the  reason  which  this  dialectic  proposed  to 
satisfy? — the  universal  or  impersonal  reason  which  so  many 
believed  was  one  in  all  men  ?  or  that  personal  reason  which, 
in  spite  of  William  of  Champeaux's  contempt  of  the  merely 
accidental  difference  making  each  man  himself,  seemed  more 
and  more  to  engross  attention  ?  The  one  might  be  satisfied 
by  the  'coercive  arguments'  of  the  school,  by  some  almost 
mechanical  schematism  of  Lully.  In  the  latter  was  a 
large  residuum  of  emotion,  to  which  such  proof  appealed  in 


172    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

vain,  or  carried  no  lasting  conviction.  Gradually,  with  the 
advance  of  enlightenment,  the  individual  becomes  more 
prominent,  not  as  a  poor  representative  of  a  type,  but  as 
himself.  The  Realist  of  the  time  of  Abelard  apologises  for 
the  particular ;  Nominalism  awakens  with  the  first  stirrings  of 
the  Renaissance,  with  Bacon  and  Raymund  of  Sabunde,  to 
a  new  interest  in  idiosyncrasy,  in  hoecceitas.  Throughout 
the  long  Dialectical  age  the  mystic  temperament  had  pro- 
tested sometimes  too  rebelliously  in  favour  of  immediate  and 
individual  experience,  personal  and  direct.  Faith  was  an 
act  of  human  will,  or  a  sudden  influx  of  Divine  grace;  the 
final  test  was  always  emotion.  We  can  trace  the  spiritual 
ancestry  of  the  Reformers  back  through  the  German  Mystics, 
through  the  Victorines,  to  Erigena  himself.  The  needs  of 
the  soul  were  never  without  a  champion ;  yet  in  spite  of  this, 
the  test  of  the  Church  remained  officially  true,  a  justification, 
mainly  intellectual,  to  a  final  bliss  only  in  knowledge  satisfied. 
Nothing  is  more  remarkable  than  the  survival  of  this  spirit 
in  the  Reformed  Churches.  Starting  from  a  distinct  motive 
to  destroy  the  tyranny  of  an  external  Church  and  restore 
the  individual  believer  to  his  rights,  the  movement  ended  in 
arid  and  precise  formulas  and  Confessionism.  It  is  always 
difficult  to  reconcile  the  two  aspects  of  the  Church,  as  a 
missionary  and  as  a  State  institution. 

§  7.  Religion,  it  has  been  said,  is  '  Morality  touched  with 
emotion,'  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  morality  itself  is 
already  emotion.  Whenever  the  individual  transcends  un- 
intelligible dictates  or  blind  social  routine,  he  yields  to  a  sense 
of  special  function,  which  is  not  a  burden  or  an  obligation, 
but  a  privilege.  He  neither  calculates  his  action  by  rules  of 
universal  cogency  and  application,  nor  does  he  consider  his  own 
personal  expediency ;  the  two  uses  of  reason,  the  catholic  and 
the  petty.  He  does  not  formulate  a  theory  of  supererogation, 
but,  if  questioned,  he  would  certainly  answer  that  a  law,  to  be 
general,  can  prescribe  only  a  very  vague  negative  and  slender 
minimum,  and  that  the  first  step. in  moral  advance  is  to  ascend 
from  the  universal  and  typical  to  the  particular,  to  find  out 
his  own  endowment  and  make  the  most  of  it.  The  impulsive 
force  behind  this  must  be  of  the  nature  of  sentiment  and 
emotion ;  it  is,  at  the  very  lowest,  a  kind  of  irrational  trust  in 


MEDIEVAL  INTELLECTUALISM       173 

the  purpose  of  things  and  the  worth  of  one's  fellow-creatures ; 
at  its  highest,  a  loving  devotion  to  a  cause,  as  yet  perhaps  im- 
perfectly known,  to  a  Master  with  whom  veritable  intercourse 
even  here  is  possible,  and  vouches  for  future  blessedness.  The 
whole  mystical  tradition  had  this  merit,  in  spite  of  needless 
anchoritism  and  of  speculative  aberration.  The  test  of  truth 
was  for  them  experience ;  love,  given  and  returned,  was  some- 
thing which  dialectic  could  not  touch ;  it  could  neither  support 
nor  overthrow.  While  it  was  clear  that  the  philosophical  defence 
of  Christian  belief  was  uncertain,  that  the  calm  exercise  of 
reason  gave  no  certain  warranty  for  the  *  credenda,'  while  one 
by  one  the  dogmas  (felt  necessary  by  moral  instinct)  were 
removed  from  the  keen  search  of  criticism  and  the  play  of 
dialectical  argument,  belief  in  the  Gospel  was  founded  more 
and  more  on  inward  conviction  and  assurance,  and  on  the 
growing  sense  of  personal  worth,  quite  compatible,  as  it  would 
appear,  with  the  humblest  abasement  of  '  creaturehood.'  With 
Feudalism  (a  pendant,  as  we  see,  to  the  compromise  of  Casuistry) 
the  absolute  dominion  of  Universals  is  broken  down ;  instead 
of  confronting  State,  or  Empire,  or  Papacy,  the  average  man 
found  refuge  in  a  nearer  home,  a  limited  horizon,  under  a 
visible  human  protector.  The  Renaissance,  with  its  warm  ap- 
proval of  subjectivity  and  adventurous  freedom,  completed  the 
liberation.  What  a  man  felt  was  true  for  him ;  the  test  of  right, 
as  of  religion,  was  experience.  Intellectualism  was  gradually 
undermined;  the  very  universality  of  Reason  robbed  it  of 
individual  cogency;  pressure  of  mere  undeniable  syllogism 
was  as  distasteful  as  the  hard  externality  of  State  custom  and 
ceremony.  With  William  of  Occam,  as  with  the  German 
mystics,  it  was  recognised  that  all  knowledge  that  transcends 
experience,  nay,  all  precepts  of  morality,  must  be  assigned  to 
faith.  It  remained  for  the  Reformers  to  explain  and  interpret 
this  faith;  and  it  was  reserved  (by  a  signal  catastrophe)  for 
the  Reformed  Churches  to  relapse,  in  their  emphasis  on  Con- 
fession and  on  literal  orthodoxy,  into  the  very  intellectualism 
from  which  they  had  arisen  protesting. 


174    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

D 

On  Natural  and  Rational  Religion 

§  I.  Periodic  attempts  to  simplify  Religion,  by  reducing  '  credenda* 
to  lowest  terms,  with  an  emphasis  either  on  Nature  or  on  man  :  Pan- 
theism and  Humanism  :  the  natural  or  the  moral. 

§  2.  Accord  of  nature  and  reason  taken  for  granted :  early  attach  of 
Sophists  against  society  :  the  humanistic  epoch  at  Athens — reason  in 
harmony  with  things  :  later  schools  did  not  conceal  the  gap  between 
intelligence  and  the  actual  order  :  reverence  for  '  Law  '  returns  in 
the  Roman  Empire,  and  dominates  the  Middle  Age. 

§  3.  Once  again  the  subjective  spirit  claims  deliverance  :  scientific 
mind  demands  that  nature  and  reason  shall  correspond  :  belief  that 
the  two  books  of  God's  revelation  could  not  contradict :  the  *  Double 
Truth,'  not  a  cowardice  or  an  irony,  but  due  to  supposed  distinctness 
of  realm  and  method  :  this,  owing  to  failure  of  attempts  to  conciliate, 
e.g.  Science  and  Religion,  Mechanism  and  Teleology — still  widely 
prevalent. 

§  4.  Natural  Theology  allowed  in  the  Middle  Age  —  Christianity 
completed,  did  not  overthrow  :  were  the  '  lesser  mysteries  '  sufficient  ? 
answer  in  the  tolerance  of  the  Crusades  :  different  estimate  of  the 
doctrinal  superstructures :  same  problem  in  education  to-day  :  to  one, 
the  superfluous  ;  to  another,  the  essence. 

§  5.  Two  tendencies  protest  against  dogmatic  orthodoxy ;  (i)  in- 
tellectual and  sceptic ;  (2)  mystic  and  emotional :  the  intellectual 
reaction.  Pelagian,  removes  God  to  a  distance;  the  mystical  brings 
Him  close  to  the  soul :  intense  dualism  of  the  anti-Rationalism  of 
orthodoxy :  Gunther  pleads  for  scholastic  tolerance :  natural  light  suffices 
to  guide  to  God. 

§  6.  Religion  tends  to  retire  into  an  inaccessible  fastness  :  all  is 
of  faith  :  Catholic  and  Protestant  unite  in  denying  right  of  Reason  : 
in  place  of  casuistry  and  accommodation,  there  is  the  non  possumus 
of  supernatural  dogma,  the  inner  society  of  the  Elect :  demoralising 
of  the  State  :  new  basis  sought  in  antiquity  for  statecraft  and  conduct  : 
deserted  by  the  Church,  new  crisis  in  the  antagonism  of  Individual 
and  State  sovereignty. 

§  7.  Attempted  restatement  of  belief  within  the  bounds  of  Reason  : 
Socinian  and  Deistic  movements  :  significant  shrinkage  of  the 
'  credenda '  in  the  latter :  authority  of  Bible  disappears  :  written  record 
a  mere  concession  to  blindness  and  ignorance  :  rapid  vanishing  of 
rational  theology  on  the  Continent. 

§  8.  Attempt  to  supply  plausible  hypothesis  of  world  from  human- 
istic point  of  view — a  failure  :  rationalistic  temper  equally  averse 
to  the  miraculous  {external)  and  the  emotional  {inward)  :  tenets, 
specially  claimed  for  reason,  found  to  be  no  more  secure  than  the  rest: 
situation  at  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century. 


NATURAL  AND  RATIONAL  RELIGION    175 

§  I.  Reflecting  men  have  in  all  ages  turned  from  the 
tyranny  of  a  State-Church  and  the  supposed  impostures  of 
designing  priests  to  the  simplicity  of  a  true  Religion,  within  the 
limits  of  reason,  guaranteed  both  by  nature  and  experience. 
Such  a  religion  comprises  little  more  than  the  precepts  of 
morality  slightly  raised  above  the  ordinary  level,  and  some- 
times divested  of  all  connection  with  profit  and  loss,  reward 
and  penalty.  If  the  emphasis  rests  upon  the  epithet  natural, 
the  main  requisite  will  be  a  willing  surrender  to  the  general 
scheme  of  things  and  a  fulfilment  of  the  special  task  or  duty 
incumbent  on  man.  Such  a  union  of  duty  and  resignation 
will,  for  example,  be  found  in  Marcus  Aurelius;  calm  ac- 
quiescence in  outward  happenings  beyond  our  power,  resolute 
performance  of  fitting  and  humane  virtues,  cheerfulness,  kind- 
ness, forgiveness,  mainly  neutral,  it  will  be  observed,  and 
feminine.  If  the  emphasis  be  laid  rather  on  man,  and  the 
chief  interest  be  social  reform — in  a  word,  if  the  movement  be 
humanistic  and  the  world  conceived  as  a  mechanism  set  in 
motion  by  a  far-off  Divine  mover — certain  postulates  are  made, 
much  in  advance  of  the  Naturalism  already  noted.  The  Deity 
is  conceived  as  transcendent,  as  moral,  and  as  retributive. 
Advancing  science  and  certitude  drives  out  the  somewhat  mis- 
chievous reverence  for  mere  physical  phenomena,  which  we 
may  note  in  Seneca,  in  Lucilius,  in  all  who  try  to  pass  straight 
from  chemistry  to  worship.  Man,  again  the  centre,  if  not  of 
the  universe,  at  least  of  his  own  thought,  assumes  a  certain 
correspondence  outside  to  his  inmost  needs.  God,  no  longer 
a  mere  physical  power,  is  a  Creator  of  a  sphere  of  moral  dis- 
cipline, and  a  judge  and  rewarder  of  the  proficient  there.  No 
doubt  among  professing  Deists,  to  whom  moral  aim  and  tran- 
scendence are  the  first  axioms  of  theology,  we  notice  a  constant 
tendency  to  fall  over  into  its  opposite,  Pantheism — as,  for 
instance,  in  Toland.  But  this  division  will  hold  good  in  the 
main  for  the  religion  of  calm  reflection.  As  the  sense  of  awe 
and  wonder  at  the  infinite  is  uppermost,  so  will  man  be  for- 
gotten or  discounted,  bidden  to  remember  his  essential  insig- 
nificance and  to  enjoy  in  the  vague  thrill  of  *  cosmic  emotion  * 
some  faint  substitute  for  worship ;  as  the  insistent  self-conscious- 
ness of  men  becomes  urgent,  almost  released  by  enlightenment 
from  servitude  to  phantoms  and  abstractions,  and  warring  with- 


176  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

out  respite  against  conventional  fetters,  so  moral  and  social 
needs  demand  a  personal  sovereign,  to  whom  each  in  the 
end  is  accountable.  The  one  is  strictly  'natural,'  the  other 
*  rational ' ;  yet  the  two  words  are  nearly  always  found  applied 
with  equal  pertinence  to  the  simple  religion  which,  as  it  was 
thought,  can  be  supported  by  invincible  arguments.  There  is 
no  suspicion  that  the  two  may  not  be  compatible. 

§  2.  It  is  instructive  to  notice  how  many  clear  minds  have 
taken  for  granted  the  identity,  or  at  least  the  harmony,  of  Nature 
and  Reason.  On  no  question  has  there  been  greater  confusion 
of  thought,  vagueness  of  result,  absence  of  definition.  In 
spite  of  the  accidental  character  of  current  Greek  cosmogony, 
the  awakening  of  really  human  interest  found  man,  Hke 
Rousseau,  sanguine  and  enterprising,  armed  with  a  rough-and- 
ready  teleology  (rather  an  instinct  than  an  assurance),  prepared 
with  his  reason  to  join  issue  with  Convention,  and  backed  by 
the  silent  but  effectual  alliance  of  Nature.  Society  was  the 
foe ;  back  to  Nature  was  the  text.  The  practical  significance 
of  the  Humanistic  age  at  Athens  lies  in  this ;  from  the  selfish 
and  calculating  Reason  of  the  unit  an  appeal  lay  to  the  diffused 
or  corporate  conscience,  which  found  expression  in  the  social 
laws  and  customs  of  a  civilised  State;  and  behind  the 
mechanism  of  Nature,  on  which  the  sophist  depended  for  his 
doctrines — free  competition  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest — there 
lay  the  same  order,  discipline,  and  wisdom,  somehow  working 
for  a  good  and  righteous  end  (whatever  precise  meaning  they 
might  attach  to  these  terms),  setting  to  each  his  place  and 
giving  to  each  his  due.  This  pious  teleology,  which  aimed  at 
restoring  both  for  State  and  universe  a  recognised  objective, 
at  conciliating  individual  and  general  will,  had  but  a  short 
and  troubled  reign.  The  nearer  objective,  the  community,  was 
more  and  more  discredited  by  philosophic  thought ;  and  from 
the  first  it  had  claimed  vaguely  to  be  cosmopolitan.  The 
larger  objective.  Nature  or  the  Universe,  was  abandoned  to  the 
play  of  incalculable  atomic  motions,  or  rapidly  summed  up  in 
a  pietistic  phrase,  which  meant  nothing  but  a  recognition  of 
the  actual,  though  it  was  borrowed  from  human  intelligence. 
Neither  Epicurus  nor  Zeno  really  expressed  the  world  in  terms 
intelligible  to  the  understanding  or  relative  to  man ;  but  only 
the  former  was  candid  enough  to  confess  it.     With  the  Roman 


NATURAL  AND  RATIONAL  RELIGION   177 

Empire  returned  the  reign  of  'Law'  in  its  widest  sense,  as 
social  convention.  It  was  founded  on  a  democratic  and 
utilitarian  movement,  which  cared  neither  for  the  worship  of 
the  universe  nor  for  the  disorderly  greed  of  rival  statesmen. 
Western  Europe,  for  six  hundred  years  under  Empire  and 
Church,  settled  down  under  the  tutelage  of  continuous  tradition, 
and  expected  by  obedience  to  win  security  in  this  world  and 
salvation  hereafter,  vo/aos  was  once  again  /Sao-iAcvs  dTrai/Twi/ 
unchallenged;  and  nothing  is  more  significant  than  the 
steadiness  and  sobriety  of  the  unlimited  autocracy  in  either 
department. 

§  3.  But  when  it  reached  maturity  the  subjective  spirit  again 
resented  control,  and  tried  to  place  itself  in  a  direct  relation 
with  the  realities,  hitherto  only  mediately  accessible  in  Church 
dogma  or  a  caricature  of  science;  and  over  both  of  these 
spheres  a  jealous  hierarchy,  like  some  faithful  but  unintelligent 
dragon,  seemed  to  keep  watch.  While  the  mystical  movement 
approached  God  on  the  path  of  devotion  and  love,  the  scientific 
spirit  again  demanded  that  Reason  and  Nature  should  corre- 
spond. The  more  pretentious  believed  that  the  human  mind 
had  the  master-key  to  the  secrets  of  Nature ;  the  more  humble 
preferred  the  patient  and  surer  method  of  induction,  observa- 
tion, and  experiment.  And  (as  we  must  often  repeat)  the 
*  seamless  vesture '  of  the  mediaeval  onine  scibile  fell  away  into 
distinct  and  unrelated  pieces  and  departments.  It  was  idle  for 
Raymund  of  Sabunde  to  protest  that  Nature  and  the  Bible 
could  not  be  otherwise  than  in  agreement ;  just  as  it  was  in 
vain  that  Scotus  and  later  orthodox  intellectualism  insisted  on 
the  identity  of  religion  and  philosophy.  Raymund  could  not 
believe  one  of  God's  books  could  contradict  the  other ;  just  as 
Anselm  perhaps  was  secure  that  in  the  end  human  reason  was 
bound  to  agree  with  dogma — for  both  were  Divine.  But  this 
age  was  marked  by  the  emergence  of  differences  and  contrasts, 
under  a  fictitious  disguise  of  unity ;  the  sciences,  having  been 
released  from  the  Church,  began  to  drift  away  from  each  other. 
The  painstaking  student,  applying  the  methods  of  one  depart- 
ment to  another,  trying  to  compare  or  correlate  their  results, 
found  himself  hopelessly  embarrassed ;  the  Double  Truth  (as 
has  been  remarked)  was  by  no  means  an  ironical  or  timid 
deference  to  the  '  powers  that  be,'  but  the  expression  of  a  real 
12 


178    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

conviction, — that  different  realms  demanded  different  laws,  had 
different  avenues  of  approach.  And  it  has  become,  since  the 
Middle  Ages,  a  mere  affectation  to  pretend  to  a  guidance  of 
the  whole  of  life  under  a  single  rule :  the  indefensible  in  one 
department  is  the  paramount  in  another ;  and  there  is  no  '  clear- 
ing house'  where  the  several  schemes  can  be  interpreted  in 
terms  of  each  other.  The  basal  problem  of  modern  thought 
since  Descartes  is  the  conciliation  of  mechanism  and  teleology ; 
and  within  the  last  half  century  it  has  taken  the  detailed  form 
of  a  '  Harmony  of  Science  and  Religion.'  Yet  that  apostle  of 
compromise  would  indeed  be  bold  who  announced  that  any 
real  advance  had  been  made  towards  a  solution.  A  modus 
Vivendi  has  been  reached  which  is  valid  for  all  practical 
purposes,  viz.  to  keep  the  rivals  resolutely  apart.  It  is  not 
likely  that  reason,  with  its  passion  for  unity,  completeness,  con- 
sistency, will  remain  contented,  or  indeed  ought  to  remain 
contented,  with  this  sorry  dualism.  But  it  seems  fruitless  to 
deny  at  present  the  essential  lack  of  sympathy  between  the 
realms  of  fact,  idea,  and  worth. 

§  4.  Natural  Theology  attempted,  as  long  as  possible,  to 
hold  together  this  world  and  the  next.  Though  many  people 
to-day  are  under  the  impression  that  our  age  is  marked  by  a 
reconciliation  of  antitheses,  it  is  characteristic  of  the  Middle 
Age  rather  than  our  own  to  believe  in  ultimate  harmony. 
They  had  no  such  accentuated  distinctions  as  we  have  grown 
accustomed  to, — Church  and  State,  Church  and  World,  Church 
and  Society.  There  is  no  Dualism  (as  of  the  Protestant 
Epoch)  in  the  system  of  Aquinas.  All  is  orderly  and 
hierarchic;  and  the  morality  of  the  average  man,  indeed  of 
the  average  Hellene,  is  only  completed,  not  overthrown,  by 
the  more  perfect  or  supplementary  code  of  the  Gospel. 
Abelard  gives  the  earliest  and  perhaps  the  best  type  of 
rational  and  natural  religion  before  the  suspicion  of  separate 
spheres  entered.  To  him,  as  to  later  Deism,  religion  is 
mainly  morality,  and  the  Gospel  the  republication  of  the  code 
of  Nature.  As  to  Raymund,  just  three  hundred  years  later,  all 
positive  dogma,  even  the  Bible,  is  a  concession  to  human 
weakness,  an  exposition,  under  the  guise  of  authority,  of  the 
very  simple  truth  which  a  man  could  ascertain  for  himself  by 
the  aid  of  Reason.     Once  allow  that  unaided  intelligence  can 


NATURAL  AND  RATIONAL  RELIGION    179 

attain  a  sufficiency  of  light  and  truth,  and  the  question  arises, 
'What  then  is  the  value  of  the  further  illumination?  Are 
not  the  lesser  Mysteries  enough?'  The  Crusade  made  men 
more  tolerant ;  they  came  back  convinced  that  honour,  virtue, 
and  science  were  not  confined  to  Christians.  The  attitude  to 
the  Catholic  and  dogmatic  superstructure  will  vary :  to  some 
a  superfluous  excrescence  or  mischievous  perversion ;  to  others, 
the  precious  and  indispensable  part  of  reHgion.  To-day  we 
have  a  very  similar  experience,  which  shows  how  little  human 
nature  and  its  problems  have  changed  in  a  thousand  years. 
The  conflict  and  the  combatants  are  the  same.  In  the  matter 
of  national  education  some  complain  of  sectarian  bitterness, 
of  undue  emphasis  not  on  the  main  and  unimpeachable 
issues  of  religion,  but  just  those  points  most  open  to  doubt  and 
controversy.  Children,  it  is  said,  "  are  not  to  be  taught  the 
Gospels  as  a  whole ;  but  to  be  encouraged  from  their  earliest 
years  to  attach  capital  importance,  not  to  opinions  on  which 
Christians  are  agreed,  but  to  those  as  to  which  they  are  at 
war"  (Right  Honourable  J.  Asquith,  May  loth,  1906). 

§  5.  Against  the  precision  of  dogmatic  or  confessional 
orthodoxy,  two  different  tempers  protest :  the  intellectual  and 
the  emotional,  critics  of  the  head  and  the  heart.  The  Re- 
formed Churches  show  precisely  the  same  double  reaction. 
There  is  abroad  in  the  seventeenth  no  less  than  the  thirteenth 
century  the  opposition  of  pure  reason,  the  opposition  of  pure 
feeling, — Intellectualism  and  Mysticism.  Again  and  again  the 
exigency  of  a  State  Church,  which  is  bound  to  employ  a 
written  constitution,  excites  the  dislike  of  those  who  would 
base  religion  either  on  a  general  intelligence  or  on  an 
individual  experience.  The  intellectual  reaction,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  usually  deistic,  and  removes  the  first  mover  as  far  as 
possible  from  the  ascertainable  mechanism  of  the  world ;  the 
mystical  claims  that  God  is  "  not  far  from  each  one  of  us." 
(And  this,  again,  is  subdivided  into  the  orthodox  mystics,  who 
just  avoid  the  pantheistic  abyss,  Scotus,  the  Victorines,  the 
*  German  mystics,'  Weigel,  the  Quakers;  and  the  heretical 
sects,  which,  whether  in  twelfth  or  sixteenth  century,  so 
strongly  resemble  each  other,  Amalric,  David,  the  Beghards, 
the  Anabaptists.)  The  tendency  of  the  one  may  be  styled 
Nestorian  Pelagian, — man  has  to  work  out  his  own  salvation  ; 


i8o  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

of  the  other,  Eutychian, — for  the  Hght  and  truth  and  peace 
and  oneness  with  God,  which  spiritual  experience  provides,  is 
not  man's  achievement,  not  the  native  divinity  of  the  soul, 
but  a  special  grace,  a  forcible  occupation  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  when  the  poor  individuality  is  swept  away.  Both 
parties  will  resent  the  alliance  of  philosophy  and  religion, 
dialectic  and  theology :  the  rationalist,  as  derogatory  to 
reason ;  the  pietist,  as  hurtful  to  faith.  The  whole  mediaeval 
conflict  is  fought  out  over  again  in  the  Hofmann  controversy 
about  the  year  1600.  To  him,  as  to  Bernard  and  Hugh  of 
St.  Victor,  philosophy  is  of  the  devil.  "Philosophy  is  in 
religious  matters  a  robber,  as  we  see  clearly  by  the  opposition 
between  the  elements  of  the  world  and  the  elements  of 
Christ."  The  '  double  truth '  which  Luther  once  more  defends 
against  the  Sorbonne,  is  accepted :  The  same  thing  is  not 
true  in  theology  and  in  philosophy.  "Next  to  the  devil," 
says  Hofmann,  in  his  Preface  to  Pfaffrad's  theses,  "the 
Church  has  never  had  a  worse  enemy  than  Reason 
and  Carnal  Wisdom."  Gunther  {Theologies  et  Philosophm 
mutua  amicitia  ostensa,  1600)  in  defence  of  Reason  from 
this  sweeping  and  well-sustained  attack,  pleads  against  the 
paradox  and  dualism  which  seemed  to  have  entered  the 
modern  spirit  with  the  Reformation.  He  occupies  the  scholastic 
position :  both  spring  from  God  "  and  both  agree  with  each 
other ;  yet  is  Theology  the  determining  standard,  and  must  be 
recognised  as  queen  and  mistress."  Liddel  maintains  the 
same  thesis ;  to  put  a  contradiction  between  them  is  to  put 
a  contradiction  in  God.  The  light  of  nature  can  lead  to  the 
knowledge  of  God;  other  propositions  rest  solely  on  revela- 
tion, and  can  be  formulated  but  not  cognised  by  reason. 
We  have  the  distinction,  *  articuli puri  et  mixti.^ 

§  6.  We  cannot  but  be  struck  by  the  recurrence  in  identical 
terms  of  the  old  dispute  which  marks  the  opening  of  the 
fourteenth  century.  There  is  the  same  pressure  from  the 
natural  theologian,  the  same  impotence  of  formula,  the  same 
thin  limit  of  supra-rational  and  irrational,  so  easily  passed, 
the  same  tendency  on  the  part  of  earnest  believers  to 
carry  bodily  the  content  of  dogma  into  the  realm  of  faith, 
away  from  the  insidious  support  or  open  defiance  of  philo- 
sophjcal  argument.      Hofmann  is  like  Occam;  he  does  not 


NATURAL  AND  RATIONAL  RELIGION   i8i 

perhaps  exactly  deny  the  natural  knowledge  of  God,  but  he 
accounts  the  'credenda'  as  belonging  to  the  mysteries  of 
faith.  The  distinction  of  'pure  and  mixed  articles'  he 
abandons;  truth  is  only  grasped  by  faith,  that  is  by  the 
operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Olearius  assents  to  the  doctrine 
of  the  '  Double  Truth,'  and  thus  divides  thought  and  faith 
into  two  distinct  regions  which  have  nothing  in  common. 
In  view  of  the  retirement  of  religion  into  an  inaccessible 
fastness,  Reflection,  unable  to  come  to  terms  with  Religion, 
tries  to  find  its  own  basis  for  conduct  and  for  belief. 
To  rational  interpretation  and  criticism,  both  Churches 
offered  uncompromising  hostility.  The  Catholic  revival  had 
purified  the  faithful,  had  stereotyped  dogma;  it  had  'closed 
the  canon,'  and  set  (or  fancied  it  had  set)  a  final  limit  to 
doctrinal  development.  The  Reformed  Communions,  as  we 
have  seen,  revert  in  their  more  liberal  exponents  to  a  purely 
mediaeval  attitude ;  they  see  in  Philosophy  only  a  handmaid 
to  Religion.  The  State  and  the  reflecting  individual  are  forced 
into  an  attitude  of  distrust.  We  shall  afterwards  draw  atten- 
tion to  the  demoralising  of  the  conception  of  the  State;  it 
was  left  to  fight  a  purely  natural  battle  in  a  natural  world. 
The  individual  was  thrown  back  upon  his  own  resources.  In 
place  of  casuistry  and  accommodation,  the  Churches  answered 
non  possumus  and  withdrew  to  the  company  of  the  elect, 
the  faithful,  the  'twice-born,'  the  converted.  This  dualism 
was  felt  in  every  department  of  life.  Ethical  studies  were 
commenced  afresh  from  their  rudiments  and  simplest  terms. 
Systems  of  the  universe,  and  of  man's  conduct,  were  eagerly 
sought  out  of  ancient  philosophers ;  and  nearly  every  school 
of  antiquity  had  its  professed  and  earnest  representatives. 
Meantime,  Law  took  on  more  of  an  arbitrary  and  utilitarian 
character:  the  monarchy  represented  the  *  Will-to-live '  of  an 
organism  which  had  slowly  won  its  way  to  self-consciousness. 
The  individual  confronted  the  State,  both  demanding  the 
recognition  of  sovereign  rights. 

§  7.  Two  expressions  of  the  natural  religious  instinct  may 
be  noticed :  the  Socinian  and  the  Deistic  movements.  Separated 
by  more  than  a  century,  they  have  much  in  common;  and 
the  variation  is  altogether  instructive.  Both  are  cool  and 
rationalistic,   equally  determined    to    keep    well  within    the 


1 82  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

bounds  of  evidence  and  the  conclusions  of  reason.     But  the 
difference  is  startUng ;  the  one  is  founded  on  the  Bible,  and, 
while  rejecting  many  cardinal  beliefs  of  Christianity,  retains, 
somewhat  capriciously,  much  of  the  marvellous.     The  Deistic 
School  depends    for  guidance   on   no  written    record.     The 
faith  proposed  is  like  that  of  Henry  iv.,  the  '  religion  of  all 
honest    men.'     The    'credenda'    have    shrunk    to    a    mere 
recognition  of  a  first   cause  of  the  world   and  an  ultimate 
judgment   of  man.     The   old    mediaeval   freethought   revives 
again  ;  Christianity  is  no  novel  and  priceless  revelation,  but  a 
restatement  of  forgotten  truths  as  old  as  the  world.     Raymund 
of  Sabunde  had  supposed  the   Scripture  was   'added,'  as  it 
were,  *  because  of  offences,'  when  men  were  no  longer  able 
to  read  the  Book  of  Nature.     It  had  no  supreme  or  intrinsic 
merit ;  it  was  a  condescension  to  the  blind  and  incompetent. 
The  moral  detail  of  this   simple  faith  was  based  largely  on 
the  current  behaviour  of  the  *  gentleman '  and  man  of  honour, 
as  evolved  in  England, — a  land  where  wealth  and  position  had 
always  acknowledged  their  responsibilities,  and   had  usually 
led   and   but   rarely  come   into   conflict  with   public  feeling. 
For  extremes  of  scepticism,  pure   selfishness,  or   'altruistic* 
sentiment,  we  must  go  elsewhere;  to  those  countries  which, 
pushing  conduct  into  mathematical  rigour  and  thought  into 
logical   issue,   borrowed   largely  from   England,  and,  without 
being   aware,  altered  the   loan   past   recognition.     Even  the 
slender  tenets   of  Deism   vanish   in  the  development  of  the 
French    Enlightenment;    and    in    Germany    all    interest    is 
centred   upon   the   arguments    for  personal   immortality;   or 
that  peculiar  form  of  belief  which  in  a  godless  universe  retains 
some  idea  of  consequence,  retribution,  and  reparation,  may 
be  indebted  to  Buddha  or  to  Averroes,  and  finds  its  clearest 
exponents  in  Fichte  and  Mr.  McTaggart. 

§  8.  I  have  wished  to  trace  thus  far  the  claim  of  independent 
reason  to  interpret  the  world,  and  to  restore  to  human  con- 
sciousness the  irreducible  minimum  of  certainty,  —  which 
religion  seemed  no  longer  able  to  afford.  I  do  not  propose 
to  follow  its  onward  (or  downward)  course ;  for  the  limits  of 
our  first  lecture  make  us  halt  on  the  threshold  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Nor  is  this  the  place  to  revive  (as  we  must  sooner 
or  later)  the  old  doubt  as  to  the  complete  agreement  of  Nature 


THE  AVERAGE  MAN  183 

and  Reason.  We  have  been  mainly  concerned  to  show  the 
origin  of  the  rationalising  temper,  in  impatience  at  external 
miracle  and  paradox,  in  lack  of  sympathy  with  the  feelings  or 
emotions  which  for  most  men  constitute  the  beginnings  of 
conduct  and  belief.  Between  the  views  of  religion  as  a  visible 
institution,  or  a  wealth  of  private  and  personal  experience,  lies 
the  attempt  to  reduce  it  to  the  common  and  universal  laws  of 
intelligence, — relieved  of  any  childish  deference  to  tradition 
and  authority,  of  sentimental  weakness  in  preferring  hallu- 
cination and  subjectivity  to  one's  saner  and  more  impersonal 
moments.  We  have  noted  the  recurrence  of  the  same  problem. 
What  precisely  is  the  ultimate  Conte?it  of  this  rational  belief? 
how  far  can  it  be  recognised  as  catholic,  ascertainable  by  all 
reasonable  beings,  cosmopolitan  and,  like  the  '  Law  of  Nature,' 
of  universal  and  unquestioned  validity  ?  It  was  discovered 
that  the  Content  was  apt  to  vanish;  that  the  dogmas  still 
claimed  as  obvious  to  intelligence  were  as  uncertain  as  the  rest. 
A  wider  knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  man,  which  the  new 
century  brought,  carried  all  such  axioms  or  beliefs  (indispens- 
able as  they  were  for  the  practical  life)  into  the  realm  of  faith. 

"Jesus  died  because  He  strove 
Against  the  current  of  this  wheel :  its  name 
Is  Caiaphas,  the  dark  preacher  of  Death, 
Of  sin,  of  sorrow,  and  of  punishment ; 
Opposing  Nature :  It  is  Natural  Religion." 

Blake. 

E 

The  Average  Man  as  the  Standard 

§  I .  Religion  again  considered  in  its  threefold  aspect ;  theory 
of  world,  visible  community,  personal  appeal :  the  last  is  of  paramount 
value,  the  duty  of  winning  and  comforting  souls. 

§  2.  The  three  arbiters,  sound  reason,  the  Church,  the  individual 
or  average  man  :  '  enthusiasm,'  the  differentia  of  man  rather  than 
thought  or  deference  to  law  :  rests  on  a  conviction  of  personal  worth, 
which  rejection  and  social  experience  does  not  support :  only  im- 
patience or  disappointment  leads  reformers  to  wide,  collective,  and 
coercive  measures. 

§  3.  The  part,  of  interest  rather  than  the  whole  :  modern  studies 
of  rudiments,  the  child,  the  savage,  early  society  :    Religion,  as  the 


1 84    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

architectonic  science,  cannot  take  interest  in  secondary  and  derivative  ; 
that  is,  cannot  he  mainly  intellectual,  mainly  social:  all  are  equal, 
and  the  only  universal  faculty  is  love,  as  willing  surrender  :  this  the 
modern  State  cannot  expect  to  elicit. 

§  4.  Among  early  Christians  this  acceptance  of  the  average  con- 
founded the  wise  :  uniform  treatment  of  criminal  and  pharisee  ex- 
asperated :  Christian  message  not  moral  or  political :  it  is  a  revelation 
of  God* s  inmost  nature,  so  far  as  it  is  relative  to  man  :  it  gives  a  new 
standard  of  values :  dwindling  of  State-influence,  and  hesitation  of 
independent  ethics. 

§  5 .  Strength  of  Christianity,  a  type  of  Divine  character  singularly 
accessible  to  the  ordinary  man :  vain  attempt  of  philosophy  to  secure 
a  humanistic  basis :  sure  appeal,  sacrifice  in  service  of  a  cause  not 
yet  won  :  no  reasonable  Justification  of  this  except  in  Christianity, 
where  man  is  first  assured  of  his  worth  :  hopeless  rivalry  of  other 
creeds  of  self-abandonment :  protest  of  Fichte. 

§  6.  Provisoes  of  average  man,  devoting  himself  to  a  cause  :  these 
not  satisfied  in  other-world  theories  :  Christianity  answers  the  average 
man  ;  the  cause  is  intelligible  in  general  outline,  righteous,  and  does 
not  forget  its  followers  :  logical  position  of  Immortality  :  acceptance 
must  of  course  be  a  venture  of  Faith,  as  in  every  moral  act. 


§  I.  I  HAVE  applied  to  the  modem  Apologist  the  simile  of 
Telemachus,  falling  a  victim  to  the  two  combatants  he  tried 
in  vain  to  'reconcile.'  Religion  in  its  widest  sense  has 
three  sides :  it  is  a  theory  of  the  universe,  it  is  a  State-system 
embodied  in  a  visible  community,  and  it  is  a  direct  appeal  to 
the  personal  spirit,  isolated  from  his  fellows  and  confronted  by 
the  Eternal.  As  a  theory  of  the  universe  it  can  be  supported 
or  refuted  by  arguments  and  methods  common  to  all  exact 
thinkers ;  as  a  society,  it  has  its  own  written  constitution,  and 
its  laws  of  self-preservation,  when,  for  the  welfare  of  the  whole, 
the  part  must,  if  needs  be,  suffer ;  as  an  appeal,  that  which  we 
call  the  *  simple  gospel,'  it  is  directed  to  that  unique  ultimate 
reality,  so  far  as  we  know,  the  sentient  and  aspiring  conscious- 
ness. Apologetic  may  decide  to  display  the  truth  of  the 
Christian  scheme  of  existence,  or  to  attack  correctly  that 
implication  of  God,  man,  nature,  fate,  and  providence  which 
many  conceive  to  be  the  only  alternative  (and  here  Olearius 
would  seem  to  be  in  agreement  with  Sir  George  Comewall 
Lewes) ;  or  it  may  seek  to  justify  the  tutelage  of  the  Church,  the 
relative  if  not  absolute  value  of  a  beneficent  and  disinterested 
society,  especially  in  days  when  the  State  has  lost  or  given 


THE  AVERAGE  MAN  185 

up  her  moral  purpose, — the  probable  truth  in  the  wisdom  of 
the  collective  mind  accumulating  in  long  years  of  power  and 
experience.  Or,  again,  it  may  merely  aim  at  awakening  the 
torpid  personality,  at  providing  an  asylum  against  the  sorrows 
of  the  world,  at  adjusting  the  message,  full  of  hope  and  en- 
couragement, to  the  needs  of  each.  "  They  argued  not,  but 
preached,  and  conscience  did  the  rest."  Now,  each  of  these 
three  attitudes  can  be  justified.  It  is  impossible  to  withdraw 
the  dogmatic  and  intellectual  side  from  criticism,  or  keep 
Church  teaching  entirely  aloof  from  the  currents  of  the  time. 
No  one,  again,  would  propose,  in  the  dearth  of  successors,  to 
banish  an  institution  which  performs  a  function  of  growing 
value  needful  in  a  'democratic'  age, — a  vigilant  supervision 
of  the  encroachment  of  rulers  upon  a  people's  rights.  But  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  the  third  is  of  paramount,  if  not 
of  exclusive,  importance.  The  convincing  or  silencing  of 
*  heretics'  against  their  will  by  *  coercive'  argument,  the 
justifying  of  the  mission  of  a  Church  establishment,  the 
need  of  a  hierarchy,  of  some  consistent  order,  discipline, 
and  government:  these  cannot  compare  with  the  duty  of 
winning  souls. 

§  2.  "Every  law,"  says  Punjer,  "requires  interpretation  and 
application  to  individual  cases.  The  Catholics  regard  the  in- 
fallible office  of  the  Church  in  teaching  as  the  means  of  doing 
this :  other  Christians  take  other  views.  The  *  Enthusiasts  * 
find  this  means  in  the  immediate  inspiration  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  the  inner  word.  Others,  who  are  called  by  their 
opponents  *  Unitarians '  or  *  Socinians,'  find  it  in  sound  reason  " 
{sana  ratio).  This  well  expresses  the  general  division  between 
the  three  forms  of  apology;  the  vindication  of  the  rights  of 
the  Church,  of  sovereign  Reason,  of  the  average  individual. 
Although  the  term  *  Enthusiast '  (as  we  see  in  the  Masonic 
Liturgy)  for  long  had  a  sinister  meaning,  yet  it  is  in  this 
direction  that  the  present  sympathies  of  men  are  tending. 
Man,  before  he  is  a  conscious  member  of  a  community, 
before  he  can  exercise  reason,  is  stirred  by  emotions,  instincts, 
and  affections.  He  is  swayed  by  feelings  which  he  cannot 
explain,  while  they  give  him  undeniably  the  substance  of  his 
life.  Social  discipline  and  clear  reasoning  will  guide  or  control, 
but  will  not  supply  them.     The  primitive  and  rudimentary  may 


1 86    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

be  influenced,  nurtured,  or  even  extinguished  by  convention 
and  thought,  but  never  created.  The  *  differentia '  of  man  is 
not  a  calculating  submission  to  law,  nor  a  detached  exercise 
of  reason,  but  spontaneous  surrender  to  a  cause  in  whose 
service,  at  first  sight,  the  individual  has  so  little  to  expect. 
Moralists  have  to  take  this  impulse  for  granted;  but  strictly 
this  cannot  implant  or  explain  it.  '  Enthusiasm '  is  just  this 
spirit,  rising  to  heights  of  heroism  which  does  not  count  the 
cost ;  or  sinking  to  depth  of  fanaticism  or  self-indulgence  in 
which  every  moral  restraint  is  swept  away.  And  the  sense  of 
immediate  inspiration  is  just  this  necessary  complement  of  self- 
devotion — the  assurance  of  personal  value:  what  we  have 
called  the  paradox  of  the  religious  sentiment,  a  mingled  pride 
and  humility,  nowhere  more  conspicuous  than  in  the  Epistles 
of  St.  Paul.  Life  in  Society,  calm  reflection,  do  not  teach 
this  personal  value;  the  evidence  goes  all  the  other  way. 
What  would-be  reformer  of  social  abuses  has  not  at  times 
turned  away  in  despair  from  a  fruitless  task  in  which  his  own 
direct  efforts  are  unavailing,  in  which  the  wider  experience  of 
average  mankind  teaches  him  only  how  ineffective  is  the  unit  ? 
It  is,  of  course,  this  consciousness  which,  in  default  of  success 
with  individuals,  drives  men  to  the  poor  substitute  of  a  compul- 
sory and  collective  legislation,  where  the  soul  is  forgotten,  and 
the  barren  and  lifeless  abstraction,  race.  State,  Church,  class, 
is  set  up  instead.  Yet  both  history  and  the  short  experience 
of  life  may  teach  us  that  the  whole  can  only  be  reached  through 
the  part. 

§  3.  Therefore  it  must  be  the  part  that  interests  us :  not  in 
its  sophisticated  and  conventional  perfection,  but  in  its  earlier 
stages.  To  this  we  trace  the  eager  studies  of  the  child,  of 
primitive  man,  of  the  rudiments  of  society.  Almost  overlaid 
and  hidden,  the  original  nature  and  essence  of  man  is  patiently 
sought  for.  We  are  trying  at  last  to  get  beneath  the  surface. 
The  special  sciences,  economics,  pure  philosophy,  politics, 
through  no  fault  of  their  own,  are  obliged  to  consider  man 
from  a  certain  and  restricted  point  of  view ;  to  isolate  him  in 
a  particular  relation,  and  during  this  strictly  limited  survey  to 
keep  steadily  out  of  sight  the  rest  of  his  complex  nature. 
Religion,  if  it  is  to  have  any  genuine  significance,  any  lasting 
value,  must  be  the  architectonic  science.      Nothing  else  can 


THE  AVERAGE  MAN  187 

harmonise  the  several  elements  in  man  and  give  coherence  to 
his  life  and  aim.  And  religion  cannot  take  an  exceptional 
interest  in  what  is  secondary  and  derivative;  it  cannot  be 
mainly  intellectual  or  social.  It  must  consider  the  deepest 
thinker,  the  wisest  statesman,  just  on  the  same  level  as  the 
humblest  believer.  It  looks  upon  each  as  having  much  to 
receive  but  something  to  offer.  The  service,  the  talent,  the 
faculty  may  and  must  differ  in  each,  but  the  spirit  of  the  loving 
surrender  and  loyal  work  will  be  the  same  in  all.  We  must 
start  with  what  is  universal,  not  with  the  privilege  of  a  few. 
Now  the  only  universal  emotion  is  love, — attachment  to  a 
person  or  a  cause.  As  soon  as  the  instinct  of  self-preservation 
is  satisfied,  the  interests  expand  with  sympathy  towards  the 
Divine  Being  or  protector,  the  human  parent  or  society,  which 
has  supplied  and  can  guarantee  this  safety.  This  is  the  source 
of  all  moral  conduct  that  is  spontaneous  and  uncovenanted. 
"God  first  loved  us";  that  is,  the  believer  is  somehow 
assured  of  special  grace  or  favour,  and  then  in  return  will 
trust  implicitly,  obey  without  questioning  each  detailed 
command,  surrender  present  comfort  and  advantage,  even  life 
itself.  A  sovereign,  individual  or  society,  or  deity,  will  receive 
what  it  gives,  and  no  more.  It  is  hopeless  to  expect  in  a 
utilitarian  State  of  modern  times,  which  avowedly  overrides 
the  special  case  for  the  general  welfare,  and  regards  man  in  the 
mass  and  the  type,  the  same  neglect  of  self,  the  same  patriotic 
spirit,  the  same  personal  loyalty  which  belonged  to  more 
primitive  times.  Obedience  to  law  and  custom  will  proceed 
from  the  calculations  of  prudence,  or,  in  a  crisis  which  demands 
severe  self-abnegation,  -from  a  sense  of  noblesse  oblige^  or 
(for  want  of  a  better  term)  from  a  heroic  impulse  which 
carries  one  far  beyond  the  conditions  of  the  precise  contract. 
But  in  this  latter  *  supererogation '  man  is  impelled  by  an 
*  enthusiasm'  which  he  cannot  perhaps  logically  justify;  he 
feels  the  indwelling  power  of  a  Spirit  not  his  own. 

§  4.  If  it  be  one  principal  aim  of  these  lectures  to  inquire 
into  the  real  meaning  of '  democracy,'  to  show  its  intimate 
and  necessary  connection  with  the  Gospel,  no  apology  should 
be  required  for  the  title  of  this  essay, — *  the  average  man  as 
the  Standard.'  That  which  puzzled  and  confounded  the 
pagan  sages  and  statesmen  on  the  introduction  of  Christianity 


1 88     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

was  its  universality,  its  inclusiveness,  and  its  intolerance.  It 
professed  to  satisfy  the  poor,  the  ignorant,  the  slave;  and  it 
carried  the  same  methods  up  through  the  ranks  of  society,  as 
yet  *  unconvinced  of  sin.'  The  chief  opposition  came  from  this 
uniform  treatment ;  "  this  people  who  knoweth  not  the  law 
are  cursed."  The  same  intellectual  superiority  left  its  trail  on 
Jewish  and  Hellenic  thought  alike.  The  very  simplicity  of  the 
message  stood  in  the  way  of  its  welcome ;  the  wise  and  moral 
demanded  *  some  great  thing,'  and  there  was  more  fascination 
in  the  Abana  and  Pharpar  of  Neoplatonic  mysticism  :  "  Be 
loyal  to  the  Master  who  died  for  you ;  be  good  to  the  brethren 
for  His  sake ;  try  to  pass  to  all  men  the  story  of  Salvation." 
It  has  been  supposed  that  Christianity  is  the  restatement  of  a 
moral  code  of  duty ;  or  the  rule  of  a  human  society.  It  is  far 
from  our  purpose  to  disparage  the  work  of  the  Gospel  in 
strengthening  and  defining  the  rules  of  behaviour,  or  in  pro- 
viding dim  outlines  of  a  perfect  State.  But  it  is  clearly  neither 
mora/  nor  political  in  the  first  place.  It  is  the  revelation  of 
God's  nature  in  its  inmost  essence,  rather  than  the  finite 
external  promulgation  or  revival  of  a  law.  It  gives  this  life 
new  meaning  and  value,  just  because  it  puts  it  in  relation  to 
eternity;  not  because  it  preaches  finality  here  in  a  community, 
uniform  and  artificial.  It  is  idle  to  deny  that  the  essential  in 
our  faith  is  the  metaphysical.  It  provides  a  new  standand  of 
values  for  human  life,  because  it  reveals  the  Divine  nature  and 
gives  an  answer  to  man's  long  hopes.  It  has  been  supposed, 
without  due  inquiry  into  average  mankind,  that  a  moral  or 
a  political  system  can  be  set  before  us  with  authority,  apart 
from  any  preconception.  It  is  certainly  true  that  the  modern 
State,  making  no  appeal  except  to  force  and  utility,  recognising 
only  a  numerical  majority  and  its  one  law  of  self-preservation, 
exerts  on  us  an  ever-decreasing  moral  influence.  It  has  long 
ceased  to  respond  to  the  question,  "  What  is  man  ?  "  It  does 
not  recognise,  nor  need  it  be  expected  to  recognise,  the  deeper 
claims  of  our  nature ;  and,  rightly,  absorbed  in  limited  and 
secular  concerns,  it  cannot  face  the  mysteries  of  life,  of  pain, 
of  individuality.  Ethics,  again,  rarely  attempting  to  start  from 
a  principle  wholly  independent  of  religion,  is  forced  to  be 
satisfied  with  a  vague  truism  as  its  initial  axiom, 'and  to  borrow 
its  content  from  the  Christian  conscience ;  to  regard  with  dis- 


THE  AVERAGE  MAN  189 

may  the  waxing  forces  of  a  scientific  theory  of  conduct  largely 
at  variance  with  the  present  ideal. 

§  5.  From  a  human  or  purely  historical  point  of  view,  the 
success  of  Christianity  is  due  to  this  resolute  detachment.  It 
quiets  the  fears,  and  encourages  the  hopes,  of  the  average  man, 
by  giving  a  type  of  Divine  character  startlingly  different  from 
the  ordinary  manifestations  of  *  power '  and  *  wisdom  '  shown  in 
creation.  Philosophy,  ever  attempting  in  vain  to  secure  a 
humanistic  basis  for  speculation,  finds  itself  beaten  back  again 
into  the  open  sea  of  Naturalism, — which,  sometimes  open  and 
unabashed,  sometimes  in  the  masquerade  or  disguise  of  panthe- 
ism, denies  to  man  any  real  significance,  save,  perhaps,  as  pre- 
paring for  some  new  and  inconceivable  order  of  things.  "  I  tell 
you,"  says  Don  Juan  in  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw's  Man  and  Super- 
man^— "  I  tell  you  that,  as  long  as  I  can  conceive  something 
better  than  myself,  I  cannot  be  easy  unless  I  am  striving  to  bring 
it  into  existence  or  clearing  the  way  for  it.  That  is  the  law  of 
my  life.  That  is  the  working  within  me  of  Life's  incessant 
aspiration  to  higher  organisation,  wider,  deeper,  intenser  self- 
consciousness,  and  clearer  self-understanding."  "  Later  on," 
he  says,  "  Liberty  will  not  be  catholic  enough :  men  will  die 
for  human  perfection,  to  which  they  will  sacrifice  all  their 
liberty  gladly.  .  .  .  Man,  who  in  his  own  selfish  affairs  is  a 
coward  to  the  backbone,  will  fight  for  an  idea  like  a  hero. 
...  If  you  can  show  a  man  a  piece  of  what  he  now  calls  God's 
work  to  do,  what  he  will  later  on  call  by  many  new  names, 
you  can  make  him  entirely  reckless  of  the  consequences  to  him 
personally."  This  self-surrender  to  the  service  of  a  cause  with- 
out counting  the  cost  is  indeed  man's  most  conspicuous 
differentia;  but  can  it  be  asserted  that  it  finds  any  rational 
justification  elsewhere  than  in  the  Christian  religion?  A 
triumph  won  at  the  expense  of  our  present  sufferings  by  some 
higher  creature  could  find  no  place  in  any  righteous  scheme  of 
the  universe,  as  we  count  righteousness  and  justice  to-day.  If 
this  is  the  last  word  of  scientific  speculation,  it  will  not  be 
long  before  the  enthusiasm  wears  off.  "  Shall  I  beget  beings 
like  myself,"  says  Fichte,inthe  Destiny  of  Man,  "that  they  too 
may  eat  and  drink  and  die,  leaving  behind  them  beings  like 
themselves  to  repeat  over  again  the  same  things  that  I  have 
done  ?    To  what  purpose  this  ever-revolving  circle,  this  cease- 


igo  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

less  and  unvarying  round,  in  which  all  things  appear  only  to 
vanish  again,  and  pass  away  only  that  they  may  reappear  as 
they  were  before ; — this  monster  continually  devouring  itself 
that  it  may  again  reproduce  itself,  and  bringing  itself  forth  only 
that  it  may  once  more  devour  itself?  "  There  is  no  certainty 
of  some  *  far-off  Divine  event ' ;  there  is  no  proof,  nor  even  prob- 
ability, of  any  certain  '  advance '  or  *  progress '  (if  we  can 
attach  conceivable  meaning  to  these  terms.) 

§  6.  Writers  who  have^  been  reluctant  to  break  entirely  with 
the  Christian  and  altruistic  theory  of  life,  have  long  played 
with  this  kind  of  delusive  Realism  (in  the  mediaeval  sense) 
as  a  substitute  for  personal  comfort.  But  such  hopes,  in 
the  perfection  of  man  or  society,  apart  from  the  Christian 
message,  are  wild  and  visionary.  Nature  or  the  cosmic  process 
knows  nothing  of  a  terminus,  a  goal,  a  realised  ideal.  What 
looks  like  attained  perfection,  as  Professor  Huxley  begins  in 
his  Evolution  and  Ethics^  is  but  the  unstable  point  whence 
begins  the  gradual  descent.  Equilibrium  is  not  life,  but 
death ;  development  can  only  strictly  be  used  of  individuals, 
not  of  collective  entities,  which  are  only  called  one  for  con- 
venience ;  education,  as  Lotze  argued  against  Lessing's  vague 
mediaevalism,  can  only  apply  to  the  growing  and  continuous 
experience  of  conscious  beings,  not  to  the  general  term  which 
combines  them  in  a  class.  The  average  man  has  a  few 
provisoes  in  attaching  himself  to  a  cause  unreservedly;  it 
must  be  righteous,  intelligible,  it  must  include  himself.  One 
is  forced  (so  often  is  the  taunt  levelled  at  Christianity)  to 
repeat  that  the  doctrine  of  immortality  satisfies  not  so  much  a 
selfish  instinct  as  a  rational  demand.  Apart  from  it,  righteous- 
ness, virtue,  justice,  happiness  cease  to  have  a  meaning.  The 
Gospel  satisfies  at  once  man's  desire  to  know  himself  and  to 
know  God :  "  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father." 
The  axioms  of  this  architectonic  science  must  be  received 
in  faith,  but  must  and  can  be  tested  by  experience :  belief 
must  precede  and  pass  into  knowledge.  The  answer  is  made 
to  the  appeal  of  unhappiness  and  unrest ;  in  its  origin  quite 
selfish,  "  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  "  The  anxious  question 
is  put  not  by  the  thinker  or  the  citizen,  but  by  the  average  man  \ 
who  before  he  works  in  the  vineyard  wishes  to  be  assured 
of  his  own  value,  that  he  is  not  labouring  in  a  bad  or  a  mean- 


THE  AVERAGE  MAN  191 

ingless  cause.  The  special  work,  talent,  equipment,  is  a  minor 
matter;  in  a  very  true  sense  works  add  nothing  to  faith. 
Christianity  gives  a  conviction  which  seems  wanting  in  other 
religions,  of  co-operation  in  a  Divine  scheme,  in  which  the 
recompense  is  not  so  much  distinct  achievement  as  the 
willingness  of  service  itself.  And  this  willingness,  as  is  shown 
in  the  experience  of  numberless  Christians  (even  of  St.  Paul, 
who  prays  to  be  anathema  for  his  brethren),  depends  upon 
the  absolute  confidence  that  each  one  of  us  is  safe  in  the  hands 
of  a  Master  who  cannot  deceive.  Else  were  resignation  and 
devotion  unrighteous,  a  useless  and  stubborn  defiance  of  the 
laws  which  govern  things.  That  this  is  an  act  of  faith  (often 
on  the  slenderest  evidence)  cannot  be  denied ;  but  it  is  not 
greater  than  is  demanded  by  any  moral  choice  of  which  the 
issue  and  the  consequence  is  obscure,  the  sole  guidance,  "  I 
must  for  I  ought,  I  can  for  I  must." 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  II— A 

On  the  Necessity  of  basing  Institutions  upon  average 
Human  Nature 

§  I .  Curious  ignorance  of  human  nature  betrayed  by  designers  of 
Utopian  society  :  neither  the  virtue  of  the  rulers,  nor  the  drowsy  con- 
tentment of  the  subjects,  could  survive  in  equilibrium. 

§  2.  The  modern  State  and  statesmen  are  also  to  blame  in  their 
hasty  Judgment  of  man's  needs  :  problem  of  sovereignty,  State  or 
individual  ?  the  modern  theory  due  to  Luther  and  to  Machiavelli :  force 
and  expediency :  suspicious  relations  of  State  and  subject  in  the 
modern  State  :  notable  exception  of  personal  loyalty,  an  anomaly  :  no 
appeal  to  moral  feeling. 

§  3.  Average  man  unsusceptible  to  the  influence  of  abstractions  :  the 
post-Reformation  State  might  have  been  remodelled,  independently  of 
Church  tutelage,  without  such  loss :  became  not  merely  un-religious  but 
un-moral. 

§  4.  Error  in  basing  reconstruction  upon  a  supposed  Classical  model, 
not  on  the  feelings  of  average  man :  the  voluntary  element  might  have 
been  retained  :  Government  might  have  become  the  extension  rather 
than  the  denial  of  the  family. 

§  S«  Justification  for  those  who  seek  to  restrict  the  scope  of  govern- 
ment {Tolstoy)  :  some  believe  this  movement  inevitable  :  perversion  of 
preventive  action  of  State  :  decay  of  the  spontaneous. 

§  6,  The  Christian  has  no  such  widespread  distrust  in  average  human 
nature  :  this  is  better  and  more  generous  than  the  social  system  :  a 
better  acquaintance  with  ordinary  impulse  and  springs  of  conduct 
might  have  been  expected,  and  is  not  yet  too  late. 

§  I.  Human  nature  is  very  much  better  (using  the  word 
in  its  widest  and  most  popular  sense)  than  its  professed 
exponents  and  eulogists  seem  willing  to  recognise.  All  Utopias 
for  the  last  four  hundred  years  have  discerned  the  ideal  in 
a  vcDv  TToXts  superintended  by  a  scientific  and  disinterested 
aristocracy.  They  have  extolled  the  latter  at  the  expense  of 
the  former,  the  refined  minority  at  the  expense  of  the  great 
bulk  of   the  people, — and  this    with    all    their    pretensions 


HUMAN  NATURE  193 

to  democratic  sympathy.  There  is  no  reason  to  trust  the 
dutifulness  of  an  intellectual  more  than  of  a  hereditary  or  pluto- 
cratic ruling  caste.  Ability  has  its  temptations  as  well  as  avarice 
or  pride  of  assured  position.  A  republic — that  is,  a  people 
shorn  of  its  natural  representatives — is  exposed  to  unscrupulous 
wealth  and  unscrupulous  ambition.  But  an  equal  mistake, 
and  perhaps  one  more  mischievous,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
conception  of  the  still  governed  and  subordinate  classes. 
It  is  presumed  that  a  uniform  distribution  of  comfort  will 
expel  envy  and  satisfy  the  heart's  desire.  It  is  almost  need- 
less to  say,  it  would  effect  neither  one  nor  other.  It  could 
not  free  men  from  the  passion  of  competition,  nor  would 
it  lull  into  forgetfulness  their  higher  sensibilities.  Striving 
is  for  the  people  the  essence  of  life,  first  for  self,  next  for 
a  cause.  Acquiescence  and  rest  in  equilibrium,  as  was  said 
in  the  last  essay,  is  impossible  whether  in  Nature  or  in  the 
State.  The  dignity  of  man,  if  it  is  not  attained  in  ideal 
feudal  vassalage  to  a  trusted  and  beloved  master,  is  certainly 
not  won  by  subservience  to  a  food-distributing  committee; 
nor  could  human  nature  find  satisfaction  in  such  a  society, 
bound  as  it  must  be  by  rigorous  laws,  supported  by  picturesque 
myths,  safeguarded  now  and  again  by  a  secret  and  murder- 
ous attack  on  revolutionary  ideas.  We  are  concerned  at 
present  not  with  the  Utopians'  unwarranted  confidence  in 
a  scientific  ruling  class,  but  with  their  curious  ignorance  of 
original  human  nature,  of  those  impulses  which  lie  at  the  root 
of  all  human  action.  It  will  appear  an  undeserved  calumny 
upon  the  poor  and  lowly  to  believe  that  they  have  no  aspiration 
beyond  a  uniform  and  tiresome  plenty ;  that  in  the  shifting  of 
responsibility  from  parent  to  State  (the  aim  of  all  Utopian 
schemes  since  Plato)  they  will  be  glad  of  relief  from  a  distasteful 
burden.  In  our  still  uncertain  and  precarious  life  of  to-day, 
having  even  yet  some  element  of  hazard  and  adventure,  it  is 
impossible  to  enter  fully  into  this  ideal  of  a  leaden  and 
ascertained  monotony ;  but  from  the  moral  point  of  view,  it 
cannot  be  doubted  that  such  an  existence  would  be  inadequate 
to  the  needs  of  human  feeling. 

§  2.  If    the   visionary   has    failed    to   interpret   and  make 
allowance  for  the  deeper  side  of  man,  the  modern  State,  the 
modern  politician,   has  also   been   at  fault.     It  would  seem 
13 


194     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

that  the  more  civilised  the  community,  the  less  the  appeal  to 
moral  feeling.  After  1500,  the  modern  State  confronts  the 
dissociated  atoms  which  once  formed  subordinate  groups  with 
a  tempered  independence,  with  local  ties  and  sympathies,  with 
a  certain  autonomy  more  or  less  genuine.  It  breaks  down 
all  intermediate  corporations  and  authorities  which  pretended 
to  compete  with  it.  As  we  have  already  noticed,  we  see  the 
two  incompatible  claims  preparing  for  the  contest  which  still 
hangs  in  the  balance  to-day — the  sovereignty  of  the  State,  the 
sovereignty  of  the  individual ;  and  all  modern  government  is 
but  a  compromise  between  the  two.  At  the  same  time  the 
State  became  independent  and  secular;  its  measures  were 
directed  to  the  sole  purpose  of  ensuring  its  survival  as  an 
organism.  The  popular  basis  of  all  civil  authority  everywhere 
acknowledged  in  the  Middle  Age  was  displaced  by  a  theory 
oddly  pieced  together  from  the  new  beUef  in  Divine  right  and 
a  sincere  yet  shamefast  respect  for  force,  ability,  and  cunning. 
The  two  pioneers  (or  rather  spokesmen)  of  the  new  State, 
Luther  and  Machiavelli,  invented  between  them  a  conception 
of  sovereignty  which  the  Middle  Ages  could  not  have  recognised 
or  accepted.  Within  the  community  appeal  was  made  to  utility 
or  to  fear ;  laws,  definite,  precise,  and  arbitrary,  succeeded  to 
custom  and  local  usage,  which  might  be  said  to  persuade  rather 
than  compel,  to  represent  the  piety  of  ancestors  rather  than  the 
caprice  of  a  tyrant.  The  coercive  machinery,  within  and 
without,  police  and  soldiers,  became  more  and  more  complex 
and  efficient;  and  it  need  not  be  said  reaches  the  greatest 
perfection  after  the  protest  of  the  Revolution  and  among  the 
most '  democratic '  States.  The  relations  of  ruler  and  subject  are 
marked  by  mutual  suspicion  and  distrust :  every  tax-payer  is  a 
potential  defrauder  of  the  revenue ;  every  government  official  is 
a  natural  enemy ;  every  fresh  edict  will  begin  or  conclude  with 
a  penalty.  The  term  loyalty  is  applicable  only  to  a  very 
peculiar  and  anomalous  relation,  a  sentiment  of  attachment  to 
a  Person  (who  is  strictly  forbidden  to  exert  direct  influence 
in  the  State) ;  or  is  allowed,  for  want  of  this  personal  object, 
to  evaporate  into  a  vague  pride  in  the  country  of  one's  birth, 
and  a  utilitarian  willingness  to  fight,  if  necessary,  in  its  defence. 
Can  it  be  said  in  such  societies  that  appeal  is  made,  in  the 
name  of  right,  to  the  higher  motives  of  the  people  ?    Is  it 


HUMAN  NATURE  195 

reserved  for  primitive  communities  and  their  strange  sur- 
vivals to-day  to  shame  Western  civilisation  by  a  contrast 
of  methods  ? 

§  3.  It  may  well  be  asked,  whether  a  far  safer  and  more 
moral  basis  of  authority  might  not  have  been  fixed  for  the 
post-Reformation  State?  We  cannot  accept  the  excuse  that 
the  vastness  of  the  new  territories,  welded  into  one  out  of 
piecemeal  confusion,  made  austere  and  impersonal  relations 
between  rulers  and  ruled  indispensable.  In  China,  owing  to  the 
wise  moderation  of  the  central  authority,  the  absolute  ruler  of 
the  largest  Empire  under  heaven  is  nothing  but  the  Father  of 
the  State,  and  borrows  from  the  simplest  human  relation  some 
of  its  sanctity  and  moral  influence.  With  the  disappearance 
of  kingship,  it  cannot  be  doubted,  the  last  pretext  for  any 
appeal  except  to  force  or  self-interest  might  be  removed ;  and 
the  average  man  is  notably  unsusceptible  to  abstractions  which 
often  cloak  the  intrigues  of  faction  and  party.  The  effective 
force  behind  this  ancient  monarchy,  at  the  disposal  of  its 
sovereign,  is  inconsiderable;  to  Western  notions,  ludicrously 
inefficient.  Yet  it  is  certainly  something  to  have  aimed  at  a 
government  which  imposed  laws  and  secured  obedience  without 
invoking  force,  however  far  short  the  practice  fell  of  the  ideal. 
Legislators  in  Europe  who  tried  to  set  free  the  secular  life  of 
the  people  from  Church  tutelage,  might  have  retained  with 
advantage  (had  it  been  in  their  power)  some  of  the  best  features 
of  mediaeval  society :  local  independence  within  small  areas  of 
province,  township,  and  village ;  the  sense  of  reciprocal  duties 
between  ruler  and  subject  j  the  voluntary  taxation  of  classes  by 
themselves  to  meet  extraordinary  expenditure ;  liberty  of  free 
association;  personal  and  social  ties  as  the  basis  of  political 
intercourse  in  place  of  the  doubtful  coherence  of  naked  atoms. 
But  it  would  seem  that^  the  conception  of  the  State  drifted  off 
at  once  from  its  old  moorings,  and  became  not  only  irreligious 
but  unmoral.  Personal  ethics  (as  we  shall  have  occasion  to 
see)  were  avowedly  the  ethics  of  self-interest,  and  to  the  select 
body  of  experts  forming  the  Government  were  handed 
over  many  of  the  duties  which  man  had  once  owed  to 
himself  and  his  fellow.  It  is  probable  that  we  have  not 
yet  reached  the  end  of  this  process;  such  a  point  might  be 
marked  by  the   oft-threatened   but  never-effected  'separation 


196    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

of  Church  and  State,'  by  the  overriding  of  parental  inclination 
scruple,  and  responsibility  in  the  interests  of  the  race. 

§  4.  If  social  institutions  had  in  that  unfortunate  period  of 
reconstruction  been  based  on  the  feelings  of  average  man,  and 
not  on  a  supposed  return  to  a  classical  ideal,  the  result  might 
have  been  more  promising :  a  moral  bond  might  have  been 
retained;  class  jealousies  and  antipathies,  to  a  large  extent 
fomented  by  the  sovereign  authority,  might  have  been  appeased. 
Many  of  the  burdens  of  parochial  and  civil  life  might  have 
been  regarded  as  privileges,  and  that  public  spirit  in  local 
and  municipal  improvements  have  been  fostered  which  was  so 
conspicuous  in  the  Roman  Empire  under  the  wise  and  moderate 
supervision  of  the  Imperial  system.  Taxes,  no  longer  the  im- 
position of  an  alien  authority,  might  have  been  regarded  as 
'benevolences,'  as  voluntary  subsidies.  The  assertion  that 
such  a  scheme  is  impracticable,  is  to  accept,  at  the  outset  and 
to  save  trouble,  the  Calvinistic  belief  in  man's  evil  nature.  But 
if  the  *  democratic '  movement  has  any  definite  principle  it  is 
the  contradiction  of  this,  the  appeal  to  the  original  innocence 
and  kindly  feeling  of  the  heart.  The  government  by  force  of 
the  sullen  and  recalcitrant  cannot  be  considered  the  final  form 
of  society ;  nor  can  its  alternative,  violent  partisan  reaction  at 
the  close  of  given  periods,  and  the  retrievement  of  loss  by 
the  well-known  method,  '  spoils  to  the  victors.'  Had  human 
nature  been  understood  or  consulted,  had  it  somehow  managed 
to  become  articulate  and  to  secure  a  hearing,  government 
might  perhaps  have  been  the  extension  rather  than  the  denial 
of  the  family.  The  spirit  of  willing  obedience  might  have 
been  transferred  with  happy  result  into  a  higher  sphere ;  the 
imperative  and  arbitrary  character  of  the  new  legislation  might 
have  been  softened.  It  need  not  be  repeated  that  the  change 
to  what  are  termed  representative  institutions  altered  nothing 
in  the  general  temper.  It  is  indeed  possible  that  the  feeling  of 
alien  authority  is  stronger,  now  that  a  Government  cannot  lay 
claim  to  represent  more  than  one-half  of  the  nation. 

§  5.  It  is  easy  to  idealise  a  mere  possibility  and  to  exag- 
gerate the  defects  of  a  development,  perhaps  inevitable;  but 
it  is  clear  that  those  movements  which  under  various  names 
seek  to  reduce  the  power  and  scope  of  government,  have  a 
genuine  grievance   against  its   abuses.      No   one    can   read 


HUMAN  NATURE  197 

Tolstoy's  End  of  the  Age  without  a  sense  that  his  strictures 
are  largely  justified,  that  the  painful  constitutional  reform  of 
the  last  century  has  done  little  to  relieve  the  distress  of  the 
toilers,  to  give  a  real  value  and  definiteness  to  their  boasted 
liberties.  On  this  point  few  will  be  at  issue  with  the  writer. 
Acknowledgment  of  our  failure  is  universal;  only  the  means 
of  applying  a  remedy  are  discussed;  and  man's  effort  is 
paralysed  by  a  sense  of  the  unknown  forces,  social  and 
economic  rather  than  political,  which  disregard  the  highest 
motives  of  reformers  and  stultify  their  enterprise.  But  at  least 
an  appeal  might  be  tried  to  the  more  generous  instincts  of 
mankind :  to  loyalty,  a  sense  of  honour,  unselfish  action  for 
the  common  good,  which  in  these  days  has  been  replaced  by 
an  anxious  waiting  for  the  next  encroachment  of  the  rulers. 
We  are  witnessing  to-day  the  disappearance  of  the  voluntary 
and  spontaneous.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  in  an  exaggerated 
estimate  of  free-will,  consequent  on  the  nominal  recognition  of 
individual  rights  and  value,  the  State  was  content  to  sit  com- 
placently, vigilant  but  idle,  until  some  crime  had  been  done, 
rather  than  to  take  measures  of  prevention.  It  is  no  doubt  a 
gain  that  the  centre  of  interest  is  transferred  from  the  punish- 
ment of  a  criminal  to  the  early  education,  to  the  circumstances 
and  training  of  the  young,  which  stops  the  formation  of  such  a 
character;  yet  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  a  certain  mechanical 
automatism,  and  it  is  the  common  fault  of  all  Utopian  schemes 
that  undue  emphasis  is  laid  on  this  early  policing  of  character 
and  industry,  on  the  uniform  minimum  of  unconscious  virtue 
and  compliance  with  rule  that  must  result.  The  State  (which 
in  this  context  can  never  be  anything  but  a  well-meaning  but 
fallible  committee)  takes  over  many  of  the  ancient  virtues,  such 
as  charity  and  the  care  of  parents  and  children,  and  applies 
a  certain,  if  gradual^  solvent  to  the  ties  of  domestic  life. 
The  time  for  'voluntarism'  has  passed,  as  for  *  works  of 
supererogation.' 

§  6.  With  this  widespread  distrust  in  average  human  nature, 
of  which  the  above  supplies  symptoms  rather  than  causes,  the 
Christian  can  have  no  sympathy.  Certain  ages  and  nations 
have  suffered  because  the  ideal,  recognised  and  carelessly  re- 
spected in  theory,  has  remained,  like  Plato's  ideal  domain, 
without  contact  with   practice.     It  is  possible  in  the  other 


198    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

extreme  to  have  an  avowed  system  of  government  and  adminis- 
tration on  a  much  lower  and  more  sordid  level  than  public 
sentiment.  In  the  private  life  of  the  people  there  is  little  trace 
of  that  bitterness  of  class-feeling,  that  intensity  of  religious 
hatred,  that  complete  selfishness  of  aim,  which  might  be 
supposed  to  exist  by  the  frequent  auditor  of  political  harangues. 
There  is  still  for  the  ordinary  person  something  in  Government 
beyond  a  vexatious  and  alien  power,  elected  by  a  factious 
minority,  which  it  is  his  sole  duty  to  cover  with  confusion  and 
turn  to  the  right-about  as  quickly  as  he  can.  There  is  some- 
thing in  the  everyday  relations  of  landlord  and  tenant,  employer 
and  workman,  which  is  characterised  by  a  vague  yet  significant 
*  good  feeling,'  'mutual  understanding,' which  shows  no  trace 
of  jealous  suspicions  or  resolute  hostility.  There  is  some 
danger  that  the  wanton  and  irresponsible  language  freely  em- 
ployed at  certain  crises  in  the  history  of  '  democratic '  nations 
may  not  be  so  immediately  discounted  and  forgotten ;  may,  by 
the  insensible  influence  of  repetition  uncontradicted,  silently 
chill  the  intimacy  and  confidence  of  the  various  orders  in  the 
State.  Before  a  secular  and  selfish  education  has  spoilt  the 
finer  motives,  before  an  embarrassed  State  transfers  the  old 
spontaneous  virtues  to  legislation  and  bureaucracy,  it  would  be 
well  for  statesmen  and  social  reformers  to  come  nearer  to  the 
sound  and  generous  heart  of  the  people,  to  study  rather  than 
despair  of  the  average  man ;  and  to  found  institutions  and 
government  upon  the  natural  aspirations  of  St.  Christopher, 
which  lie  waiting  for  a  cause  and  a  master  to  serve,  in  all  men, 
but  in  a  high  degree  among  those  nurtured  in  the  hopes  and 
ideals  of  the  Gospel. 


B 

On  the  Abstentionist  Attitude  of  Reflection 

§  I.  Value  of  Christian  faith  for  the  present  scheme  of  Western 
culture :  it  has  no  competitor  :  insignificant  rdle  of  abstract  thought : 
the  three  higher  types  —  citizen,  philosopher,  Christian  :  '  ancient 
feud'  of  the  first  and  last :  the  Church  as  harmonist  and  reconciler. 


REFLECTION  199 

§  2.  Inadequacy  of  the  other  types  :  as  a  fact  they  are  never  found 
pure  and  unmixed  :  yet  speculative  thought  is  clear  in  some  modern 
instances  that  it  has  no  hearing  upon  actual  life  :  abdication  of  philo- 
sophy. 

5  3.  Service  rendered  by  this  candid  avowal :  recognition  that  the 
citizen's  life  is  not  the  Supreme  Good  ;  that  Religion  and  morality  are 
esser.tially  distinct  :  abandonment  of  the  early  claim  of  philosophy  to 
co-ordinate  all  knowledge  into  a  coherent  whole  :  the  retirement  of  the 
Brahnin  or  Buddhist  theory  from  active  competition  leaves  the  field 
open  to  other  infiuences. 

§  4.  Education  and  guidance  will  pass  to  those  who  have  most  sym- 
pathy with  ordinary  men  :  the  '  godless  '  citizen,  a  fiction  of  anti- 
Christian  imagination  :  spiritual  basis  of  so-called  '  secular  *  systems  : 
pure  philosophy  from  the  outset  anti-civic,  in  spite  of  many  attempts 
at  compromise  and  reconciliation. 

§  5.  Increasing  detachment  and  isolation  of  the  Thinker  in  Greece  : 
the  common  life  attracted  only  the  sceptic,  e.g.  contrast  of  Lucian  and 
Marcus  A  urelius. 

§  6.  Brief  revival  of  social  interest  in  the  Neoplatonists  :  long  and 
useful  supervision  of  the  Mediaval  Church  :  detachment  begins  again 
with  Protestantism. 

§  7.  Withdrawal  of  the  Protestant  sects  :  '  mystical '  attitude  of  the 
new  philosophy :  both  starting  from  demand  for  freedom  end  in  sur- 
render to  absolute  powers :  sinister  influence  on  the  development  of 
the  State. 

§  8.  The  English  School  alone  preserves  the  compromise  between 
ideal  and  actual :  not  open  to  the  disadvantage  of  pure  Monism  ; 
a  final  verdict  expressed  in  terms  of  absolute  approval  or  the 
reverse  :  Deism,  with  its  strong  attempt  to  retain  a  moral  basis  for  life, 
was  its  characteristic  creed :  a  guarded  attitude  to  the  claims  of  reason  : 
absence  of  desire  to  throw  all  the  divisions  of  life  into  one  :  from  such 
source  came  the  '  popular  '  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

§  9.  Reaction  from  the  hopeful  doctrines  of  Liberalism  at  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century  :  fact  of  force  and  existence  sole  test  of  merit 
and  only  argument :  Thought  once  more  turns  away  from  active  share 
in  life  to  its  study  and  criticism  :  waning  influence  of  philosophy,  in 
practical  reaction  against  the  early  English  Individualism,  in  theoretic 
Hegelianism  or  pure  A  narchy  :  the  '  democratic  '  movement  goes  on 
its  way  without  regard  to  first  principles  or  strict  consistency. 


§  I.  One  of  the  chief  aims  of  this  series  is  to  draw  attention 
to  thex  function  of  Christian  faith  in  practical  life,  of  individual 
or  history ;  to  show  that  Western  culture  cannot  dispense  with 
the  postulates  which  lie  behind  it,  and  that  the  peculiar  moral 
ideal  which  is  the  outcome  depends  upon  certain  principles 
and  matters  of  beUef,  to  be  held  firmly  or  even  defiantly, 


200    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

never  in  the  strict   sense   to   be  fully  proved   or  explained. 
One  fact  which  makes  this  part  easier  for  the  apologist  is 
the  insignificant  role  of  abstract  thought.    The  sole  competitor 
and  possible  successor  of  Christian  influence  is  and  can  onl/ 
be  the  State,  prescribing  behaviour  with  fatherly  minuteness, 
and  in  the  slender  field  still  left  for  personal  initiative  teaching 
some  very  general  maxims  of  morality.     If  there  are  three 
types  to  be  found  which  we  desire  for  a  moment  to  contrast 
— the  citizen,  the  philosopher,  the  Christian — it  will  not  be 
supposed  that  we   deem   them   incompatible   or  incoherent. 
As  no  character  is  absolutely  consistent,  as  the  amiable  weak- 
ness or  strange  anomaly  redeems   the   most  pedantic,  so  an 
admixture  of  these  three  types,  or  [rather  attitudes,  in  actual 
life   is  to   be   discovered   in   every  man.      But   broadly   the 
distinction  of  these  ideal  figures,  sequestered  from  each  other 
in  imagination,  may  be  said  to  lie  in  this :   the  citizen  finds 
warranty  and  guidance  enough  in  human  society  for  his  ends 
and  conduct;  he  looks  beyond  to  no  supernatural  sanction, 
and   is   contented   with    the    present   and   secular;    for  him 
morality  can  be  taught  upon  a  civic  basis,  and  principles  of 
honour    inculcated    independent   of    any   dogma   as    to   the 
nature  of  man  and  the  universe,  or  their  connection;    life, 
regulated  by  instinct  which  is  concrete  in  society,  seems  long 
enough  in  the  service  of  family  and  country  to  attain  merit 
and  satisfaction,  and  ultimate  problems  need  not  be  raised. 
To  the  philosopher^  or  student  of  truth,  this  pursuit  is  an  end 
in  itself :  sometimes  the  secrets  of  nature  are  his  aim,  to  which 
only  in  a  less  degree  the  convenience  and  obvious  use  of  their 
discovery  attracts  him ;  often  the  search  for  reality,  that  which 
abides  and  exerts  continuous  force  behind  the  world  of  ex- 
perience and  change — to  him  the  usefulness  of  such  a  pursuit 
is  incidental,  is   a   mere   episode;    knowledge   is   his  desire, 
however  out  of  sympathy  he  must  in  this  search  become  with 
the  world  of  actual  things.     This  figure  is  familiar  to  us  as 
delineated  by  Plato,  as  realised  in  numberless  sages  of  East 
and  West,  and  even  to-day  pure  speculation  has  its  adherents 
in  our  own  practical  country.     What  is  of  significance  to  us  at 
the  present  time  is  to  note  that  this  silent  and  absorbed  figure 
stands   resolutely  aloof    from    the    interests   of    the   citizen. 
Morality  and  Truth  (as  we  may  have  occasion  to  see  later) 


REFLECTION  201 

are  once  again  contrasted,  as  in  the  time  of  Aristotle,  as 
throughout  the  constant  practice  and  speculation  of  India. 
We  are  asking  that  the  true  function  of  the  Church  in  the 
world,  as  a  harmonist,  should  be  duly  estimated.  We  believe 
that  the  third  figure  alone  can  reconcile  the  animosity,  the 
'ancient  feud,'  of  the  two  former,  and  bring  together  once 
more  the  sundered  worlds  of  the  real  and  the  ideal. 

§  2.  The  practical  need  of  independence  and  detachment, 
the  vanity  of  attempting  to  make  one  set  of  logical  rules  do 
duty  in  an  alien  sphere,  is  no  ground  for  reproaching  the 
legitimacy,  the  cogency,  of  consistent  systems.  The  type  is 
unreal  just  because  it  is  a  type;  and  by  banishing  all  that 
is  individual  it  has  lost  all  that  is  living.  But  this  '  unreality ' 
does  not  interfere  with  its  merit.  In  its  proper  place,  it  is 
indispensable.  The  Stoic  *  wise  man '  had  its  use  in  preaching, 
as  it  had  its  purpose ;  but  it  was  fortunate  that  no  one  could 
actually  realise  the  monstrosity.  No  one  can  be  a  mere 
citizen,  a  mere  thinker ;  for  the  two  have  to  meet  in  everyday 
life.  The  one  has  his  private  moments  of  anxiety,  of  hope 
and  of  wonder,  and  (certainly  in  earlier  years)  of  speculation ; 
the  other,  his  weaker  relapses  into  sentiment  and  interest. 
It  is  not  because  the  Christian  rejects  the  civic  ideals,  or 
despises  the  sage's  whole-hearted  devotion  to  'truth,'  that 
he  insists  on  their  inadequacy.  He  claims  that  the  Gospel 
embraces  and  ennobles  every  department,  function,  and 
relation  of  life;  and  when  he  takes  note  of  the  dismal  gulf 
which  stretches  between  temporary  expediency  in  actual  life 
and  the  unapproachable  ideal,  he  confidently  believes  that 
the  mission  of  the  Church  is  to  unite  what  is  separated,  to 
conciliate  what  is  hostile.  "  Philosophy,"  says  Mr.  McTaggart 
in  his  Hegelian  Studies  (204),  "can  afford  us  no  guidance 
as  to  the  next  step  to  be  taken  at  any  time.  .  .  .  We  are 
confronted  to-day  with  schemes  both  for  increasing  and 
diminishing  the  stringency  of  social  ties.  .  .  .  We  are  invited 
to  nationalise  the  production  of  wealth.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  suggested  that  the  relations  of  husband  and  wife,  of 
parent  and  child,  should  be  reduced  to  the  minimum  which 
is  physiologically  necessary.  I  have  no  intention  of  suggesting 
that  the  second  tendency  is  right  or — here  at  least — that  the 
first  is  wrong.     But  I  maintain  that  the  question  is  one  upon 


202    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

which  philosophy  throws  no  light,  and  which  must  be  decided 
empirically.  The  Ideal  is  so  enormously  distant,  that  the 
most  perfect  knowledge  of  the  end  we  are  aiming  at  helps 
us  very  little  in  the  choice  of  the  road  by  which  we  may  get 
there.  Fortunately,  it  is  an  ideal  which  is  not  only  the 
absolutely  good,  but  the  absolutely  real,  and  we  can  take  no 
road  that  does  not  lead  to  it.  (205)  The  result  seems  to  be 
that  philosophy  can  give  us  very  little,  if  any,  guidance  in 
action.  Nor  can  I  see  why  it  should  be  expected  to  do 
so.  .  .  .  And  if  it  should  be  asked,  Of  what  use  then  is 
philosophy?  and  if  that  should  be  held  a  relevant  question 
to  ask  about  the  search  for  truth,  I  should  reply  that  the 
use  of  philosophy  lies,  not  in  being  deeper  than  science,  but 
in  being  truer  than  theology;  not  in  its  bearing  on  action, 
but  in  its  bearing  on  religion.  It  does  not  give  us  guidance : 
it  gives  us  hope." 

§  3.  This  extract  supplies  us  with  an  excellent  example  of 
a  philosophical  phase  which  is  extremely  difficult  to  seize, 
to  estimate,  or  to  criticise.  But  it  is  not  our  present  concern 
to  draw  notice  to  the  ill-assorted  parts,  the  rapid  and  discon- 
certing alternations  of  standpoint,  the  pure  intellect  and  the 
obscure  emotion,  the  Spinozan  pietism,  and  the  acrimonious 
negation  of  orthodoxy,  which  comes  out  even  in  this  short 
passage,  as  it  appears  in  all  the  writings  of  this  small  but 
important  school — the  British  Hegelians.  We  would  only 
call  attention  here  to  the  candid  avowal.  It  would  be  unfair 
and  absurd  to  ridicule  all  the  claims  of  philosophy  because 
the  philosopher  is  frank  enough  to  confess  that  he  has  no 
salutary  advice  or  suggestion  for  everyday  concerns.  To 
assert  that  the  life  of  citizens  in  community  is  not  the  supreme 
good,  that  the  rules  and  dictates  of  Moral  Law  (often  harsh, 
local,  and  petty)  do  not  represent  the  supreme  reality,  is 
merely  to  revive  in  the  West  a  cardinal  doctrine  of  all 
Eastern  sages  from  the  birth  of  time,  which  has  been  forgotten 
in  the  childish  zest  and  feverish  petulance  of  Teutonic 
influences  in  Europe.  It  has  been  too  often  taken  for  granted 
that  religion  is  synonymous  with  morality;  and  it  is  one 
purpose  at  least  of  this  course  to  point  out  the  essential 
differences  between  them;  to  show  that  only  after  a  very 
superficial   study  of  their  nature  and  symptoms  could  any 


REFLECTION  203 

inquirer  fall  into  the  error  of  confounding  them.  Religion 
is  not  even  'morality  touched  with  emotion.'  And  Mr. 
McTaggart  and  the  rest  of  his  school  have  done  this  service  : 
they  have  maintained  the  distinction,  the  independence,  the 
relative  merits  of  the  religious  and  the  moral  life.  But  in 
common  with  their  Oriental  forefathers,  from  whom  somewhat 
reluctantly  they  must  trace  their  spiritual  descent,  they  have 
locked  the  door  that  leads  from  one  realm  to  the  other  and 
have  lost  the  key.  It  was  once  the  boast  of  Philosophy  that 
it  co-ordinated  all  knowledge  and  experience  into  a  coherent 
whole.  That  again  and  again  the  philosopher  failed  to  make 
good  his  promise  was  no  hindrance  to  new  and  sanguine 
endeavours.  Men  once  more  arose  who  claimed  to  cover  the 
whole  ground,  and  provide  not  only  ultimate  satisfaction  but 
the  initial  alphabet  of  the  sciences.  But  by  such  honest 
confession  as  we  have  read  above,  one  vast  hemisphere  of 
knowledge  and  experience  is  allowed  to  fall  away  from  the 
guidance  and  the  interpretation  of  Thought.  The  field  is  now 
left  clear  by  this  abdication  for  any  substitute,  in  authority 
or  stimulus.  Significant  enough  of  the  present  state  of  feeling 
is  the  repeated  boast  or  the  muttered  regret  that  the  Catholic 
Church  has  before  it  a  new  and  brilliant  era  of  worldly  use- 
fulness. Conscious  reason,  reflected  and  systematised,  is  un- 
availing in  the  domain  of  experience.  It  tells  of  a  'king- 
dom not  of  this  world,'  of  a  single  absolute,  or  of  a  republic 
of  spirits  self-existing  from  all  eternity.  It  lays  emphasis 
either  on  the  Brahmin's  doctrine  that  'God  is  the  all,'  or 
on  the  Buddhist  belief  in  a  series  of  lives  governed  by  an 
impersonal  rule  of  recompense  (Fichte's  Moral  Order).  But 
in  neither  case  has  it  any  suggestion  to  offer  about  the 
manifold  and  uncertain  life  which  alone  we  know  and  alone 
remember. 

§  4.  If  these  two  currents  of  life,  practical  and  theoretical, 
set  in  different  directions ;  if  the  one  suffer  from  an  absence 
of  all  principle  but  convenience  and  opportunism,  and  the 
other  retreat  in  haughty  indifference  to  cloudland  —  the 
education  of  the  world  will  fall  into  the  hands  of  those  who 
have  most  sympathy  with  the  difficulties  and  aspirations  of 
ordinary  men.  The  pure  citizen,  dreamt  of  in  the  French 
Revolution,  godless,  patriotic,  and  eloquent  of  moral  abstrac- 


204    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

tions,  has  never  as  a  fact  existed.  The  basis  of  classical 
duty  and  love  to  country  and  parents  was  entirely  religious ; 
and  no  one  who  is  acquainted  with  the  real  springs  and 
sanctions  of  conduct  in  China  or  in  Japan  will  pretend  to 
have  at  last  discovered  a  pure  sense  of  obligation  and  self- 
denial  apart  from  'superstition'  or  transcendental  belief. 
The  solidarity  of  the  family,  visible  and  invisible,  shades  of 
ancestors  and  worshipping  descendants,  has  its  counterpart  in 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Church  militant  and  triumphant. 
There  is  no  genuine  secularism,  limiting  hopes  and  duties  to 
the  span  of  a  single  precarious  life,  in  the  great  Confucian 
scheme,  which,  though  reverently  silent  about  heaven  or  the 
Supreme  Being,  can  prescribe,  on  the  basis  of  parental 
affection  and  filial  duty,  a  civilisation  far  older  and  perhaps 
more  stable  than  our  own.  The  godless  citizen,  whose  fore- 
fathers were  mere  dust  in  an  urn,  yet  whose  sense  of  honour 
was  more  acutely  sensitive  than  the  Christian  conscience,  is 
a  fiction  of  interested  partisans.  Always  has  some  dim  sense 
of  spiritual  communion  with  past  heroes  reinforced  a  civic 
enthusiasm,  apt  to  abate  in  the  cool  light  of  reflection,  and  to 
be  extinguished  altogether  in  the  more  personal  delight  of 
speculative  search.  It  is,  it  may  be  hoped,  superfluous  to 
show  how  from  the  very  first  the  tide  of  Greek  thought  set 
away  from  the  wall  of  the  city-state.  Hegel  and  Carlyle 
agree  in  this,  that  the  criticism  of  a  social  institution  or  the 
grammar  of  a  language  does  not  begin  until  it  has  lost  its 
early  vigour.  To  be  self-conscious  is  still  vaguely  a  reproach ; 
the  owl  of  Minerva  wings  her  melancholy  flight  when  evening 
shadows  fall.  Certain  it  is  that  Attic  humanism,  starting  from 
a  great  and  widespread  distrust  in  the  State,  powerfully 
stimulated  by  a  singular  act  of  blind  injustice  and  indis- 
criminating  hate,  represents  an  attempted  compromise  with 
civic  life  that  failed.  Socrates,  it  is  true,  died  complying 
with  an  unrighteous  judgment  of  his  country  which  he 
might  have  evaded,  but  in  a  very  different  spirit  from  the 
unquestioning,  unreasoning  surrender  of  those  whose  epitaph 

runs — 

"  Go  tell  the  Spartans,  thou  that  passest  by, 
That  here  obedient  to  their  laws  we  lie  ! " 

For,  like  Antigone,  he  died  vindicating  a  sacred  region  of 


REFLECTION  20$ 

personal  faith,  a  mission  over  which  the  State  had  no  power, 
into  which  it  could  not  penetrate.  Religious  conviction, 
conscience,  truth,  became  of  paramount  importance,  were 
not  amenable  to  dictation  from  one's  fellows ;  were,  like  the 
chief  good  to  Aristotle,  something  private  and  inalienable. 

§  5.  His  two  successors,  though  genuinely  sincere  in 
defining  man's  differentia  as  sociality,  yet  clearly  lead  away 
from  the  narrowness  of  civic  routine.  Half  the  time  of  the 
military  and  monastic  order,  Plato's  guardians,  is  passed  in 
devotional  exercise,  in  the  contemplation  of  ideal  forms. 
Their  contact  with  real  life  was  half-unwilling,  and  could  only 
be  borne  in  the  hope  of  ultimate  freedom  from  the  common- 
place, in  the  dread  of  unworthy  substitutes.  Cicero,  who 
some  centuries  later,  and  in  strict  imitation  at  a  time  of 
similar  disillusionment,  has  to  fix  a  celestial  reward  to  attract 
the  best  men  towards  the  irksome  duties  of  founding  and 
ruling  States.  Aristotle,  perhaps  half-unconsciously,  marks 
a  still  further  stage  of  detachment.  Interested  in  statecraft 
and  public  institutions,  as  in  any  other  sphere  of  orderly  and 
accessible  knowledge,  he  shows  the  acumen  of  the  student 
rather  than  the  eager  zest  of  the  agent ;  and,  judging  merely 
in  the  light  of  previous  and  later  development  among  Greek 
thinkers,  we  cannot  wholly  explain  away  the  priority  he  gives 
to  the  theoretic  life.  Indeed,  Greek  ethics  began  and  ended 
not  with  convention  and  community,  but  with  cosmo- 
politanism —  a  bold  endeavour  to  find  the  law  of  nature 
valid  for  all  rational  beings.  The  *  Semitic'  School  of  the 
Porch  is  no  less  a  stranger  and  a  pilgrim  in  a  foreign  land ; 
preferring,  in  the  enforced  isolation  of  the  fabulous  sage,  to 
imitate  the  *god,'  where  their  predecessors,  the  Cynics,  had 
imitated  the  *  beast.'  Their  ideal  was  more  refined  and 
somewhat  more  sympathetic,  but  it  could  not  be  called  more 
social.  For  the  Epicurean,  a  charmed  circle  of  friendship 
and  seclusion  took  the  place  of  domestic  or  social  cares; 
and  the  civilised  world  fell  an  easy  prey  to  the  greedy 
struggles  of  the  Diadochi,  to  the  calmer  and  more  disinterested 
ambition  of  Rome.  Elsewhere,  we  have  tried  to  show  how 
among  the  Sceptical  School  alone,  distrusting  both  individual 
human  reason  and  the  stability  of  its  objective,  was  a  strong 
reaction  found  towards  life  in  society.     With  them,  as  with 


2o6    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

Hegel,  the  unconscious  collective  will  or  spirit  at  work  in 
society  is  the  true  guide ;  and  this  will  be  found  to  be  purely 
partial  and  relative,  owing  in  each  age  and  people  its  notable 
features  to  climate,  race,  national  character,  and  to  a  political 
development  which  somehow  runs  its  appointed  course  quite 
independent  of  its  loud-voiced  actors.  We  may  well  contrast 
the  attitude  of  Lucian  and  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  The  sum  of 
Lucian's  world-wisdom  is  comprised  in  the  significant  words 
of  the  '  Hermotimus ' — zeal  av  roiwv  .  .  .  i<s  to  Xolttov  av  a/xcti/ov 

TTOtlJo-atS    /8tW    T€    KOLVOV  ttTTaCTi    ^LOVV  CL^LOiV  Kttt  iv/XTToXlTiVa-r)  TOtS 

TToXXots  ovBev  aWoKOTOv  K.  T€Tv<l>(OfX€vov  eA-TTt^cov ;  whilst  the 
true  home  of  the  Imperial  philosopher  is  not  the  busy  State 
and  its  corrupt  commerce  of  fools,  but  the  inner  shrine  of  a 
meditative  soul,  and  a  world-fabric  which,  in  spite  of  the  Stoic 
axiom  (Kara  (jivaLv  =  Kara  Aoyov),  has  somehow  drifted  out  of 
the  comprehension  and  sympathy  of  the  thinker. 

§  6.  The  more  austere  features  of  abstention  vanished  in 
the  Neoplatonic  School.  A  hierarchy  of  varying  natures  and 
capacities,  each  good  in  its  especial  place,  succeeded  a  '  crude 
dualism'  of  saved  and  lost;  in  the  scheme  of  things  there 
were  'many  mansions.'  In  the  progressive  education  of 
souls  by  re-birth  requital  was  always  impartial ;  station,  duties, 
and  recompense  adjusted  to  the  fitness  of  the  proficient. 
Amidst  all  the  disorder  of  the  reign  of  Egnatius  Gallienus 
(253-268  A.D.),  the  feudal  period  of  the  earlier  empire,  there 
was  room  in  the  School  of  Plotinus  for  quiet  philanthropic 
work,  for  lectures  at  the  court,  even  for  suggestions  of 
political  experiment;  for  it  was  proposed  to  test  the  value 
of  Plato's  'Republic'  in  a  ruined  city  in  Campania.  While 
the  strenuous  hand  of  central  authority  relaxed,  individual 
enterprise  revived;  the  provinces  of  Rome  throbbed  with  a 
new  if  tumultuous  life;  and  the  philosopher  issued  from  his 
privacy  to  tend  the  widow  and  the  orphan  or  to  propose  a 
social  scheme.  Mysticism  has  indeed  not  seldom  been 
found  united  with  a  sound  judgment  in  practical  matters, 
with  keen  interest  in  others'  welfare;  but  only  when  the 
basis  is  religious.  We  have  before  traced  the  curious  detach- 
ment of  the  great  mediaeval  minds  from  the  common  life; 
the  interpretation  of  all  problems  in  terms  of  the  only 
universal  science,  jurisprudence.     We  are  apt  to  forget  the 


REFLECTION  207 

less  conspicuous  workers  who  have  left  no  record;  and  the 
erroneous  view  has  been  widely  received,  that  the  Church 
neglected  the  present  for  an  imaginary  future.  We  need 
hardly  perhaps  repeat  that  the  active  development  of  science 
and  society,  of  individual  and  general  reason,  could  never 
have  taken  place  without  its  support  and  guidance.  We 
must  not  judge  the  thoughts  of  an  age  by  its  chief  writers, 
just  as  we  cannot  estimate  national  welfare  by  the  brilliance 
of  a  court,  the  success  of  a  foreign  policy.  The  thinker  and 
the  poet  must  always  be  exceptional  rather  than  repre- 
sentative ;  and  humanitarian  sentiments  are  most  flattered  at 
a  time  when  they  have  least  influence.  "The  passion  for 
unity  in  the  mediaeval  mind,"  says  Mr.  Figgis,  "  only  expressed 
the  fact  that  this  unity  was  so  seldom  realised."  The  logical 
culmination  of  Christian  theory  might  be  an  absorbed 
devotional  ecstasy,  but  the  constant  practice  was  a  patient 
supervision  of  mundane  interests,  'the  day  of  small  things.' 
Pure  anchoritism  was  rather  a  pagan  heritage  than  a  Christian 
tradition;  the  believer  was  never  taught  to  be  heedless  of 
externals,  careless  of  behaviour,  or  indifferent  to  social  well- 
being.  It  was  the  error  of  the  Reformers,  reacting  from  a 
system  of  graduated  conduct,  somewhat  threadbare  and 
artificial  at  that  time,  to  suppose  that  all  duties,  like  all 
merit,  were  equal;  that  there  was  one  true  pattern  or  type 
of  life,  as  well  as  one  single  path  of  orthodoxy.  Where  the 
Catholic  Church  utilised  and  guided  the  exceptional,  the 
Protestants  expelled.  The  mystical  or  detached  temperament 
is  elevated  to  saintship  by  the  one,  no  less  than  the  fiery 
zeal  of  the  missionary ;  but  it  becomes  suspect  in  the  other, 
and  forms  a  sect.  The  Catholic  Church  cannot,  at  one  and 
the  same  time,  be  accused  of  undervaluing  and  overvaluing 
the  present. 

§  7.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  with  the  Reformation,  religion, 
not  merely  clericalism,  ceased  to  exert  a  moral  supervision 
over  statecraft.  Protestantism  bowed  to  the  secular  power, 
and  largely  helped  in  strengthening  its  claims  to  irresponsible 
sovereignty.  The  old  problem  of  Tertullian,  Novatian, 
Donatus,  once  more  reappeared.  Did  the  true  Church  con- 
sist of  the  obedient  or  of  the  perfect,  of  the  conforming  or 
the  converted?     Each  sect,  breaking  away  in  the  first  place 


208  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

from  an  indistinct  ecumenical  union,  found  even  a  national 
basis  beyond  their  imagination ;  their  embrace  becomes  con- 
stantly restricted,  their  membership  more  difficult.  Rulers, 
indeed.  Catholic  and  Protestant  alike,  might  show  strong 
interest  in  religious  difference,  —  in  war,  the  religious  issues 
were  dominant  for  a  century  and  a  half  after  Luther, — but  the 
two  sides  of  human  life  were  no  longer  in  any  vital  connection. 
And  pure  philosophy  in  the  eighteenth  century  followed  the 
lead  of  the  strictly  religious  and  Puritan  movement.  The 
three  Revivals — of  learning,  of  religious  thought,  of  independent 
philosophy — issued,  as  we  know,  from  the  cradle  of  freedom ; 
the  one  common  motive  was  desire  for  personal  autonomy. 
Breaking  from  the  control  of  the  Catholic  objective,  the 
pioneers  did  little  more  at  first  than  transcribe,  edit,  and 
interpret  the  treasures  of  the  ancient  world;  they  did  not 
originate;  they  did  but  exchange  one  authority  for  another, 
the  '  dead  hand '  of  the  Church  for  the  '  dead  hand '  of  an  alien 
culture.  The  Reform  within  the  Church  had  in  view  the 
enfranchisement  of  the  subjective  spirit;  but  it  entailed  sub- 
mission to  the  Book,  though  it  opened  the  door  to  private 
versions,  and  took  refuge  against  this  new  'Sophistic'  in  a 
rigorous  Confessionism.  Modern  philosophy  in  the  early 
years  of  the  seventeenth  century  tried  to  repudiate  all  authority, 
ipse  dixit  and  hearsay.  But,  as  we  might  expect,  in  de- 
manding this  complete  independence,  it  left  also  in  perfect 
autonomy  the  other  realm  of  practical  life,  never  really 
amenable  to  logic.  It  could  not  overthrow  the  edifice  so 
patiently  built  up  by  the  unconscious  efforts  of  workers  in 
Church  and  State,  the  coral-reef  of  popular  custom.  Its 
attitude  over  against  this  dead  weight  was  one  of  convinced 
or  ironical  deference;  in  Montaigne  and  in  Descartes  re- 
appears in  a  novel  phase  that  mediaeval  doctrine  of  the 
Double  Truth,  which  in  some  form  or  another  seems 
necessary  to  all  aristocratic  and  esoteric  philosophy.  The 
keynote  of  this  age  is  '  the  subordination  of  the  individual  to 
the  absolute  powers,'  just  as  the  text  of  thought  in  the  next 
century  is  free  personality.  Resignation  is  the  chief  doctrine 
of  orthodox  and  innovator  alike — submission  to  the  autocratic 
State  (which  just  then  happened  to  be  controlled  by  masterful 
individuals),  pious  obedience  to  the  world-process,  with  which 


REFLECTION  209 

in  a  strange  confusion  of  thought  the  Divine  will  was 
absolutely  identified  (for  the  Divine,  expelled  by  reflection 
from  accidental  and  intermittent  interference  with  the  parts, 
had  been  restored  to  the  undivided  sovereignty  of  the  whole). 
Only  in  England  did  the  practical  independence  and  sober 
sense  of  her  philosophers  refrain  from  this  mystic  surrender  of 
rights  into  irresponsible  hands.  Detachment  of  thought  from 
the  actual,  and  recognition  of  any  power  because  it  was^  not 
because  it  could  be  justified,  to  reason,  to  justice,  or  to 
imagination,  exerted  a  truly  sinister  influence  on  the  un- 
checked development  of  the  State  towards  an  un-moral 
autocracy.  Unprincipled  intrigue  and  secular  diplomacy  took 
the  place  of  ecclesiastical  arbitration.  The  States  of  Europe 
were  broken  up  into  open  or  covert  foes;  and  reflection, 
seeing  only  the  accomplished  fact,  intent  on  its  own  inward 
peace  and  security,  did  nothing  towards  supplying  the  want 
which  the  abdication  or  rejection  of  the  old  guide  had  created. 
§  8.  The  whole  practical  and  popular  movement  of  philosophy 
in  the  ensuing  age  took  its  rise  in  this  island.  Here  the 
intimate  connection  of  the  ideal  and  the  actual  had  never  been 
severed.  The  man  of  thought  was  also  the  man  of  action. 
Constitutionalism,  or  the  compromise  between  the  rival 
doctrines  of  sovereignty,  whether  of  State  or  Individual,  is 
defended  and  explained  by  the  same  pen  that  examined  so 
coolly  the  pretensions  of  the  human  understanding.  Hume  is 
not  ashamed  to  confess  that  in  the  light  of  day  he  forgets,  or 
is  obliged  to  put  aside,  the  prepossessions  of  his  strict  theory. 
This  wise  attitude  makes  the  best  of  both  worlds  without 
seeking  to  force  them  into  an  unnatural  or  a  premature  unity. 
Monism,  since  Calvin  and  Spinoza,  had  expelled  the  '  human- 
istic '  illusion  on  which  a  confident,  practical  life  is  necessarily 
built.  Intent  upon  arbitrary  Will  or  changeless  Substance,  it 
could  only  envisage  a  supposed  totality;  it  would  not  con- 
descend to  arrest  its  attention  and  concentrate  its  notice  upon 
a  trivial  stage  in  the  fleeting  process.  And,  as  we  may  soon 
detect  in  the  later  development,  if,  owing  to  the  religious  and 
moral  (that  is,  humanistic  and  relative)  instinct  of  man,  it 
is  impossible  to  refrain  from  a  general  qualification  of  the 
whole,  the  sole  terms  which  can  apply  are  absolute  good  and 
absolute  bad.  And,  as  we  must  often  repeat,  it  is  a  mere 
14 


2IO    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

question  of  temperament  what  the  final  verdict  will  be.  We 
may  perhaps  admire  the  pious  equanimity  of  Spinoza  more 
than  the  hopeless  discontent  of  later  pessimism ;  but  there 
are  no  arguments,  there  is  no  arbiter  that  can  decide  on  the 
truth  of  the  two  phases.  All  ultimate  verdicts,  where 
they  are  not  temperamental  petulances,  are  ventures  of  faith 
or  acts  of  faith.  From  this  unfortunate  position  the  English 
School  was  saved  by  its  interest  in  practice,  behaviour,  develop- 
ment, the  individual ;  and  also,  in  no  small  degree,  by  its  sense 
of  humour.  Deism,  the  supposed  religion  of  nature  and  of 
reason,  is  a  concession  to  the  needs  of  the  practical  life :  it 
accepts  mechanism,  without  the  piety  of  a  morbid  resignation, 
but  superposes  a  teleologic  postulate, — which  amounted  to 
a  moral  demand  that  man  should  be  the  end  of  creation,  and 
virtue  something  better  than  'its  own  reward.'  English 
thinkers  had  no  desire  to  batter  down  with  wanton  impatience 
the  walls  of  partition  between  the  divers  interests  and  sciences 
of  life.  They  recognised  the  limits  and  the  fallibility  of  human 
reason,  and  were  at  no  pains  to  show  that  it  was  Divine,  or 
God  Himself.  They  doubted  whether  the  development  of  the 
spiritual  element  in  things  could  be  correctly  estimated  by  a 
vague  introspection  into  one's  own  soul,  or  a  still  more  vague 
scrutiny  of  the  human  records  of  a  few  thousand  years.  So 
long  as  they  had  working  rules  which  were  actually  effective 
in  their  respective  departments,  they  had  no  wish  to  coerce  the 
rest  under  one  set,  raised  into  an  artificial  and  paramount 
position.  They  were  loyal  to  their  State  and  country  without 
requiring  a  logically  perfect  or  consistent  Constitution.  And 
from  them  came  the  sacred  flame  of  energetic  thought,  not 
satisfied  with  ideal  vision,  but  seeking  to  perfect  the  real, 
which  largely  kindled  the  eager  and  sanguine  movement  of 
the  French  Revolution. 

§  9.  Philosophy  in  this  age  is  popular,  not  abstruse ;  it  is 
concerned  with  the  world  and  feels  its  responsibility.  In 
place  of  devotional  homage  to  the  Universal,  enlightened  self- 
interest,  best  attained  by  social  amity  and  forbearance,  is  the 
end  in  view  for  all.  But  the  idea  of  innate  goodness  and  the 
happiness  of  free  co-operation  gave  place  in  the  early  years  of 
last  century  to  the  doctrine  of  State-control.  Philosophy 
veered,  with  the  wind  of  middle-class  opinion,  towards  the 


REFLECTION  211 

salutary  and  unenterprising.  The  emphasis  on  the  personal, 
the  *  humanistic,'  the  moral,  gave  way  before  the  cult  of  force, 
of  the  unconscious  yet  irresistible  world-spirit;  before  the 
blissful  contemplation  of  the  universe  from  the  aesthetic  side, 
equally  prominent  in  Hegel  and  in  his  most  bitter  opponent, 
Schopenhauer.  For  the  guidance  of  the  average  man,  the 
concrete  spirit  of  the  race  embodied  in  its  institutions  seemed 
to  suffice.  The  State,  like  everything  else,  justified  itself  by 
the  mere  fact  of  existence,  which  now  remained  the  sole 
argument  and  test  of  merit.  Thought  once  more  bowed  to 
the  '  powers  that  be,'  and,  leaving  the  masses  under  military 
tutelage  and  inquisitive  police,  passed  on  to  its  own  esoteric 
studies.  Only  in  England  has  the  voice  of  protest  been  raised 
in  favour  of  individual  development  and  self-realisation.  The 
champions  of  the  older  Liberalism,  with  all  their  ignorance  of 
human  nature,  at  least  believed  in  it ;  their  pious  faith  almost 
atoned  for  their  lack  of  first-hand  acquaintance.  It  is  essential 
to  the  welfare  of  government  (though  it  may  sound  strange 
to-day)  that  it  should  repose  upon  a  basis  of  mutual  confidence 
and  respect.  This  was  attempted  by  the  English  writers,  half- 
statesmen,  half-philosophers,  the  disappointment  of  whose 
generous  sentiments  and  outlook  is  the  most  alarming  symptom 
on  the  political  horizon.  Once  again,  even  in  England,  philo- 
sophy retired  into  the  clouds,  or  rather  into  that  ideal  *  watch- 
tower  '  from  which  the  Universe  might  be  contemplated  in  an 
imaginary  totality;  a  survey  pleasing  indeed  to  the  pride  or 
piety  of  the  speculator,  but  not  to  be  shared  by  those  whose 
work  still  kept  them  'attached  to  the  soil.'  Some  of  these 
still  retain,  with  creditable  inconsequence  and  in  one  distinct 
compartment,  an  interest  in  social  advance  and  individual 
discipline.  But  the  entire  small  but  notable  movement  of 
British  Hegelianism  is  strictly  a  reaction  against  the  freedom 
and  hopefulness  of  the  older  Liberals,  though  few  of  its 
representatives  might  care  to  confess  it.  Elsewhere,  if 
philosophy  is  sincere,  it  is  on  the  side  of  autocracy ;  where  it 
is  sanguine  as  well  as  sincere,  it  is  carried  in  its  noble  love  for 
liberty  far  beyond  the  bounds  of  sobriety,  into  the  denial  of 
all  law  and  all  control.  But  the  influence  of  these  prosaic 
academicians  or  overwrought  Idealists  is  infinitesimal.  They 
have  neither  the  patience  nor  the  confidence  which  is  necessary 


212  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

for  reformers  who  would  deal  direct,  not  with  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment, Ukases,  Dumas,  and  Utopias,  but  with  average  mankind. 
But  in  spite  of  its  present-day  eclipse,  the  '  democratic '  instinct 
is  still  strong;  and  ordinary  men  and  women  with  certain 
duties  and  uncertain  leisure,  with  vague  aspirations  towards 
that  which  they  dimly  feel  to  be  the  Good,  form  in  our 
civilisation  an  element  by  no  means  negligible. 


Claims  of  the  Individual  for  consideration 
(historically  treated) 

§  I.  Personal  consciousness  seems  an  '  dim  '  in  the  world-process  : 
claim  for  liberty  always  baffled  :  stages  in  its  demands  for  emanci- 
pation :  the  Sophists  as  pioneers. 

§  2.  Reaction  against  Nature,  Habit,  Instinct,  Control,  in  favour  of 
purpose,  insight,  art :  yet  this  claim  not  for  all  men  ;  aristocracy  of 
enlightenment. 

§  3.  The  State,  as  the  result  of  voluntary  compact  or  surrender, 
of  deliberate  design  :  spontaneous  element  in  society,  language,  be- 
haviour, overlooked  :  original  equality  first  postulated,  then  forgotten  : 
'  Sophistic,'  speculative,  not  practical  or  Iconoclastic :  {contrast  of 
later  movements)  less  revolutionary  than  Plato  :  not  dogma  but  the 
proof  of  dogma  disputed  {as  with  Scotus). 

§  4.  *  Man  measure  of  all  things  '  ;  its  meaning  :  in  epistemology , 
not  so  much  in  feeling  or  in  moral  judgment :  Relativism  should 
win  approval  to-day :  man  recalled  to  his  true  kingdom,  giving 
'  values '  {as  Adam  names)  to  the  world  of  things  :  limits  of  our  human 
faculties  ;  a  modified  anthropocentrism,  not  anarchy  or  Nihilism. 

§  5.  The  age  of  classical  Humanism  at  Athens  won  independence 
for  the  wise  :  failure  of  subjectivity,  whether  licentious  or  austere, 
hastened  on  the  Roman  Empire  ;  a  brilliant  compromise  between  the 
sovereignty  of  the  State  and  the  sovereignty  of  the  Individual :  neither 
A  Icibiades  nor  Diogenes  had  succeeded  :  a  new  freedom  claimed  and  won 
by  Christianity  :  the  East  commended  personal  search,  the  West  was 
long  before  it  tried  to  suppress  it :  the  Renaissance,  the  second  great 
revolt,  culminates  in  the  Reformation. 

§  6.  Curious  complicity  of  intellectual  brilliance  and  despotism  : 
Antinomian  tendencies  of  pure  Thought;  revival  of  the  spirit  in- 
variably weakens  '  morality  ' :  tolerance  and  doubt  born  of  the  Crusades: 
*  Age  of  the  Despots '  and  culture  :  the  basis  ability,  not  parental  right : 
claim  of  ruler  and  of  genius  to  be  '  above  law.' 


CLAIMS  FOR  THE  INDIVIDUAL       213 

§  7.  Fresh  outlet  in  the  Religious  movements  of  sixteenth  century  : 
the  '  Extreme  Left ' :  revival  of  A  uthority  :  once  more  the  intellectual 
revival  bowed  to  the  Central  power,  contenting  itself  with  speculative 
freedom  :  the  State  supports  freethought  in  its  attacks  on  belief  and 
clerical  influence :  irreligion  of  Courts  under  the  prevailing  '  Liberal- 
ism '  of  Sovereigns  before  the  Revolution  :  suppression  of  the  Order 
of  Jesus. 

§  8.  The  nineteenth  century  opens  with  middle-class  surrender  of 
impracticable  rights  :  new  form  of  Casarism  :  liberty  once  more  in 
rejection  and  private  predilection  :  increasing  scope  for  individualism 
no  longer  comprised  in  citizenship  :  religion,  conscience,  taste,  and  {to 
some  extent)  action  more  free  to-day. 

§  9.  The  strictly  academic  problem  of  'freedom '  not  treated : 
current  metaphysical  mysticism  ignores  the  difficulty, — emergence  of 
the  conscious  person :  Pantheism  more  lethargic  than  a  theoretic 
scientific  fatalism,  which  but  rarely  comes  into  conflict  with  conscious- 
ness of  intrinsic  energy  :  on  this  the  zest  of  life  depends. 

§  10.  The  'Anarchist'  movement,  its  Justice  and  its  hopes:  the 
Christian  Church  in  far  more  genuine  sympathy  with  these  aims  than 
with  the  deification  of  authority. 


§  I.  Whether  we  regret  or  are  grateful  for  the  result,  we 
cannot  doubt  that  the  emergence  of  the  personal  consciousness 
is  at  least  one  principal  '  aim '  of  the  secular  process,  as  mani- 
fested at  least  on  our  planet.  When  we  speak  of  freedom  in 
any  genuine  sense,  we  imply  the  independence  and  ultimate 
value  of  this  consciousness.  It  need  not  be  said  that  this  is 
not  a  fact  of  experience  or  a  theory  which  can  be  established 
by  'coercive  argument.'  In  effect,  nothing  is  more  patently 
incompatible  with  our  well-defined  speculative  systems  of  the 
world,  or  with  the  knowledge  gathered  by  the  wayside  of  life. 
We  find  it  invariably  under  the  control  of  Universals, — natural 
law,  social  custom,  impersonal  tradition,  orthodox  creeds,  and 
Catholic  Churches ;  and,  lastly,  the  heavy  hand  of  formal  educa- 
tion and  automatic  State-control,  which  goes  on  silently  working 
long  after  brain  and  motive  are  extinct.  The  spirit  struggles 
in  vain  to  emerge  into  complete  autonomy,  and  the  thoughtful 
or  daring  must  needs  be  unhappy,  because  they  can  neither 
accurately  ascertain  nor  accomplish  what  they  desire — self- 
realisation.  It  may  well  be  thought  a  tedious  method  to  apply 
to  each  problem  the  historical  test,  to  attempt  to  trace  it 
from  the  earliest  days  of  European  thought  to  the  present 
time.     But  such  a  method  is  perhaps  indispensable;  at  any 


2  14    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

rate,  on  this  topic,  we  have  no  alternative.  For  it  is  Greek 
cities  and  Greek  thinkers  that  stand  to  us  as  the  first  champions 
of  freedom.  Before  self-consciousness  awoke,  the  independent 
research  of  Naturalism  had,  without  knowing  it,  laid  claim  to 
entire  liberty.  When  the  individual  who  mocked  at  the 
interests  or  protested  against  the  control  of  society,  found  him- 
self with  even  less  guarantee  for  freedom  in  the  world  of 
things,  an  acute  Individualism,  blithe  or  resigned,  arose  in  the 
Sophistic  movements.  Man,  hitherto  a  serf  in  a  State  regulated 
by  ancestral  routine  or  an  accidental  phenomenon  in  a  fatal 
world,  might  somehow  regain  his  independence.  He  could 
come  back  once  more  to  the  State  and  his  fellows,  having 
learnt  this  at  least  in  his  Wanderjahre,  that  nothing  was 
sacred,  and  that  his  true  cleverness  lay  in  making  others,  by 
hook  or  by  crook,  think  Hke  himself.  He  became  an  adept  in 
rhetoric,  always  in  Greece  a  more  powerful  engine  than  the 
sword.  Single  and  detached,  as  befitted  their  principles,  found- 
ing no  school,  establishing  no  body  of  doctrine,  the  Sophists 
perambulated  Greece,  and  taught  selfishness  as  a  fine  art,  in 
the  cooling  temperature  of  the  reaction  after  the  Persian  wars. 
After  all,  it  is  to  them  that  we  owe  the  implicit  doctrine,  "  Each 
man  as  end  and  not  merely  as  means,"  upon  which  basis  rests 
the  entire  structure  of  our  humanitarian  ethics.  It  is  true  it 
did  not  apply  beyond  the  circle  of  the  noble,  the  gifted,  and 
the  opulent.  But  even  so  it  must  be  deemed  a  distinct 
conquest,  a  vantage-ground  won  for  human  thought  and 
freedom,  against  the  tyranny  of  unquestioned  convention, 
which,  whether  in  social  or  moral  sphere,  is  a  dead  weight  on 
progress. 

§  2.  Everywhere  was  there  abroad  a  tendency  to  refer  de- 
velopment to  conscious  and  deliberate  initiative.  "Design 
calculating  Purpose  and  Invention,"  says  Gomperz  of  the 
speculations  of  Protagoras,  "  fill  the  room  of  Nature,  Habit  and 
unconscious  Instinct.  ...  By  *  art,'  *  wisdom,'  or  *  virtue '  .  .  . 
men  built  houses,  governed  the  Commonwealth,  and  fulfilled 
the  moral  law.  .  .  .  We  think  (he  continues,  not  without 
humour)  that  we  can  discern  a  pedantic  note  in  these  utter- 
ances [of  the  Platonic  Socrates],  a  hint  of  the  schoolmaster's 
exaggerated  reverence  for  what  is  founded  on  reflection,  re- 
duced to  rule,  and  teachable  by  precept.     Such  a  view  of  life 


CLAIMS  FOR  THE  INDIVIDUAL       215 

(he  concludes)  was  eminently  suited  to  the  infancy  of  mental 
and  moral  sciences,  and  was  in  none  .  .  .  more  strongly  or 
more  clearly  developed  than  in  the  person  of  Socrates."  There 
is  no  need  to  wonder  at  the  illogical  issue  of  the  doctrine, 
"  Every  man  an  end  and  a  centre  in  himself."  With  an  honest 
desire  to  elicit  the  spontaneous  in  every  man,  the  Socratic 
method  combined  an  intense  hatred  of  the  merely  capricious. 
As  with  the  *  Enlightenment '  which  about  two  hundred  years 
ago  spread  over  all  educated  society  in  Europe  a  wonderfully 
homogeneous  body  of  rules  and  principles,  this  vaunted 
freedom  of  the  unit  to  think  and  act  only  with  the  sanction  of 
a  convinced  inward  approval,  very  soon  made  way  for  a  minute 
State-tutelage,  which  was  to  be  perpetual  and  (it  must  be 
feared)  hypocritical  or  ironic,  like  its  master.  It  is  difficult 
to  disembarrass  the  Platonic  accretions  from  the  genuine 
Socrates;  but  it  seems  clear  that  he  would  have  assented 
to  thus  confining  humanity's  real  prerogative  to  a  narrow 
and  cultured  circle.  The  wise  man,  claiming  an  inlet  into 
Universal  Reason,  might  pretend  to  no  advantage  over  his 
fellows,  if  they  would  only  resign  themselves  to  its  dictation ; 
but  in  the  end  he  was  always  prone  to  impose  on  others  his 
own  arbitrary  and  personal  system.  With  the  slow  process  of 
converting  the  ignorant,  he  was  very  naturally  impatient ;  like 
his  successors,  it  seemed  enough  if  one  privileged  class  in  the 
State  possessed  insight ;  if  "  the  philosopher  could  rule  as  king," 
if  the  "enlightenment  could  capture  the  machinery  of  absolutism," 
if,  with  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  "  the  New  Republicans  combined  to 
sweep  away  grey  and  deliquescent  democracy,"  all  requirements 
would  be  satisfied.  It  need  not  be  said  that  such  a  compromise 
could  content  neither  party ;  neither  Aristophanes  or  Cephalus 
the  Conservatives,  or  Alcibiades  the  Radical  individualist. 

§  3.  The  State,  men  began  to  think,  arose  in  the  voluntary 
combination  of  rational  men,  in  the  free  reflecting  choice  of 
rulers  and  forms  of  government.  They  overlooked  the  early 
insignificance  of  the  individual,  except  as  limb  of  a  tree,  member 
of  family  or  class.  They  disparaged  the  "slow  and  imper- 
ceptible achievements  of  the  moderately  gifted  multitude "  in 
their  veneration,  not  so  much  for  the  God-inspired,  God- 
descended  hero,  as  for  the  figure  of  the  calm,  dispassionate 
citizen,  trained  by  long  discipline  of  self-government, — a  reflec- 


2i6  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

tion  of  themselves  which  they  strangely  and  imprudently  threw 
back  into  the  misty  past.  The  same  prepossession  hindered  the 
recognition  of  the  spontaneous  element  in  language,  and  led  to 
the  constant  antithesis  of  nature  and  convention,  of  <^vcrts  and 
vo/xos,  each  finding  zealous  champions.  The  Atomists,  who 
were  really  the  earliest  Sophists,  see  in  the  one,  changeless, 
indestructible  constancy;  in  the  other,  whether  in  human 
society  or  personal  feeling,  mere  idiosyncrasy,  amenable  to  no 
law.  When  this  was  found  in  its  highest  perfection,  masterful, 
unscrupulous,  and  free  from  all  trammels,  it  could  command 
(as  later  in  the  case  of  the  Italian  despots)  an  aesthetic  approval ; 
for  vague  and  undefined  democracy  is  only,  if  one  may  use  the 
term,  the  vestibule  to  hero-worship.  And  in  rejoicing  in  the 
strength  of  the  'young  lion's  cub,'  or  in  seeking  to  revive 
aristocracy,  they  overthrew  alike  the  pretensions  of  an  original 
equality,  postulated  as  the  origin  of  all  society.  It  has  been 
well  pointed  out  that  the  great  difference  between  the  enlighten- 
ment of  sophist  and  of  *  philosopher '  was  that  the  former  never 
seriously  descended  into  the  sphere  of  practice.  Greece  was 
homogeneous — but  not  crushingly  uniform — in  its  government 
and  social  traditions.  No  urgent  economic  problems,  as  in 
France  a  century  ago  or  in  Russia  to-day,  pressed  for  solution. 
There  was  no  violent  overthrow  of  religion  or  commonwealth, 
only  a  gradual  decline  in  interest  and  conviction.  The  Greek 
cosmopolitanism  (which  was  really  limited  to  the  confines  of  the 
Greek  world)  was,  it  is  true,  a  mere  disguise  for  individualism, 
— but  it  was  passive  and  despondent,  not  iconoclastic.  The 
'Intellectual'  movement  in  France  or  in  Russia  claimed  at 
once  to  upset  the  existing  fabric  and  issue  in  a  daring 
challenge  to  any  and  every  authority;  but  the  criticism  and 
analysis  of  the  Sophists  was  never  a  revolutionary  propaganda. 
Indeed  (if  for  a  moment  we  may  speak  generally  of  an  uncon- 
certed  movement  of  individuals  that  cannot  be  recognised  as  a 
*  school '),  Sophistic  was  never  so  radical  as  Plato  or  the  Cynics. 
And  Aristophanes  is  perhaps  guilty  of  no  injustice  in  divert- 
ing attention  from  the  harmless  rhetoric  and  paradoxes  of  the 
ordinary  itinerant  to  the  real  mischief  of  the  arch-Sophist. 
Prodicus  is  the  apostle  of  the  simple  life,  of  strenuous  man- 
hood. About  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  Protagoras 
legislates  effectively  for  the  new  colony  of  Thurii.     The  State 


CLAIMS  FOR  THE  INDIVIDUAL       217 

had  less  to  fear  from  the  brief  riot  of  juvenile  individualism 
delighting  in  academic  thesis,  than  from  the  studied  aloofness 
and  disdain  of  philosophy.  The  Roman  Empire  again,  in- 
dulgent (within  limits)  to  fanciful  and  orgiastic  cults,  refused 
to  Hsten  to  the  exclusive  and  uncompromising  claims  of 
Christianity.  Once  more  the  Sophists,  by  many  hastily  charged 
with  atheism,  seem  on  closer  inspection  to  have  doubted  not 
so  much  the  existence  of  the  gods,  as  its  proofs, — not  *  belief  in, 
but  cognition  of,  the  Gods.'  And  here,  as  indeed  in  the  whole 
later  Nominalist  movement  in  the  Middle  Ages,  there  is  nothing 
violent,  nothing  in  the  vulgar  sense  'sceptical';  it  is  merely 
the  Greek  equivalent  of  the  wise  or  time-serving  Tacitean 
adage,  '  Sanctius  ac  reverentius  visum  de  actis  deorum  credere 
quam  scire ^  which,  in  an  age  of  exaggerated  deference  to  the 
clear,  formal,  and  correct,  to  rational  insight  and  conscious 
purpose,  allows  some  moment  in  matters  of  deep  import  to 
non-rationalised  belief  and  the  weight  of  spontaneous  popular 
faith  and  tradition. 

§  4.  It  would  be  impossible  to  leave  this  topic  without 
reference  to  its  most  notable  maxim — avOpiDiro^  fiirpov  dTravTwv, 
in  which  we  fancy  we  can  detect  the  extreme  of  individualism 
and  anarchy.  Like  most  other  relics  and  fragments  of  the 
Sophistic  age,  it  is  terse  and  obscure,  for  Heraclitus  is  still 
the  model  for  gnomic  statement ;  like  the  rest  it  is  capable  of 
two  opposite  meanings,  as  the  famous  amphilogy,  to  (rvfji<f>€pov 
rov  KpaTTovosy  either  one  to  be  deftly  put  in  prominence  for 
the  vain  blows  of  the  debater  and  as  deftly  withdrawn  at  the 
will   of  the  skilful  Sophist.     It    can   only   be   blindness  or 

*  torpor '  in  Thrasymachus  that  somehow  the  chance  is  missed 
of  disconcerting  Socrates  by  a  lofty  and  idealist  meaning  of  the 

*  interests  of  the  right.'  So  our  most  subjective  of  maxims 
may  be  a  proud  claim  for  human  reason  in  general  to  weigh 
and  appraise  the  world  of  things,  by  indisputable  right,  as 
Adam,  called  on  to  give  names  to  the  animals;  it  may  be 
the  pretension  of  a  sovereign  or  the  despair  of  a  sceptic, 
for  ever  shut  up  in  his  own  imaginary  world  which  is  for  him 
alone,  but  it  certainly  need  not  be  interpreted  as  a  demand 
for  the  absolute  validity  without  appeal  of  individual  stand- 
ards ;  ^uof  homines^  tot  senteniicB — and  we  might  add,  tot  mundi. 
If  the  whole   sophistic   tendency   is   towards  Relativism,   it 


2i8    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

must  merit  the  approval  of  an  age  like  our  own,  which  in  its 
persevering  industry  in  particular  departments  has  tacitly 
condemned  any  wild  attempts  at  summary  implication  and  all 
complacent  dogmatism.  The  Sophistic  age  recalled  man  to 
his  true  kingdom, — the  calm  survey  of  all  things  not  as 
they  are  in  themselves,  but  as  they  are  in  relation  to  himself, 
his  knowledge  and  his  needs:  for  Humanism  is  mainly  a 
fixing  of  values  (sometimes,  with  Nietzsche,  a  '  transvaluation '), 
an  appraisement.  In  medicine,  man  already  set  up  as  the  aim 
no  vague  definition  of  average  human  nature,  but  an  inductive, 
casuistic  inquiry  what  he  is  in  relation  to  his  food  and  drink 
and  to  the  rest  of  life's  duties.  Kant  has  been  compared  to 
Socrates;  but,  to  speak  candidly,  he  resembles  him  only  in 
that  moral  austerity  or  unction  (whichever  you  will)  that  is 
always  completely  separable  from  the  tenets  of  any  particular 
creed  or  system.  In  the  real  field  of  philosophy,  meta- 
physical thought,  his  forerunners  are  the  Sophists;  *  know- 
ledge is  for  ever  limited  by  the  bounds  of  our  human  faculties ' ; 
we  can  never  look  out  upon  the  world  with  other  than  human 
eyes.  And  in  this  lies  no  Nihilism,  no  anarchy.  Later 
Humanism  bade  us  forget  the  individual  and  "lay  hold  on 
eternal  life"  (e<^*  otrov  ivBex^rai  d^avart^ctv).  But  the 
keynote  of  Greek  tragedy  and  Greek  Sophistry  is  modesty  and 
caution,  fLCTpioT-q'; :  it  maintained  the  anthropocentric  stand- 
point, but  without  the  pride  of  exclusiveness,  without  the 
pretensions  to  absolute  knowledge,  which  have  been  the  bane 
of  all  the  Great  Systems.  The  chief  maxim  or  article  of  the 
Sophistic  creed  teaches  us  to  recognise,  not  to  despair  of,  our 
limitation ;  a  tempered  individualism  based  on  humility  which 
must  surely  be  the  genuine  spirit  of  any  discoverer  or  moral 
teacher  of  values. 

§  5.  Underneath  a  transparent  disguise  of  loyalty  to  the 
State,  the  classical  humanists  of  Athens  undermined  its 
authority,  and  won  the  recognition  of  the  independence  of 
the  wise.  At  least,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  private 
life  of  the  highest  civic  order,  whether  devotional  exercise 
or  scientific  study,  becomes  more  prominent  than  his  public 
duties.  It  was  the  failure  of  egoism  that  hastened  on  the 
'  social  compact '  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The  isolated  sage 
was  either  miserable,  defenceless,  and  persecuted;  or  made 


CLAIMS  FOR  THE  INDIVIDUAL       219 

impossible  demands  on  a  social  world  and  a  Nature,  both  of 
which   had   long   ceased   to   have   any  moral   import.     Both 
Caesar  and  Antony,  it  may  be  said,  represented  too  much  the 
wild  subjectivity  of  Alcibiades  to  have  any  permanent  influ- 
ence on  society.     It  was   law-abiding  simplicity,  unwearying 
diligence,   steady    reaction   towards   Conservative    past,   that 
ensured  power  to  Augustus.     The   pretension   to  be  'above 
law '  had  failed,  as  the  claim  to  live  aloof  from  society.     The 
Imperial    system    was    a    brilliantly    successful    compromise 
between  the  Sovereignty  of  the  State  and  the  Sovereignty  of 
the  Individual.    It  satisfied  the  mature  self-consciousness  of  the 
latter,  without  letting  slip  the  principles  of  order  and  cohesion. 
And   a   government   which   is   by  turns  accused  of  extreme 
socialism  and  military  despotism  must,  if  we  take  the  mean 
between  these  two  wild  accusations,  have  adapted  itself  not 
infelicitously  to  the  needs  of  the   age.     In   Christianity,  the 
individual  won  another  triumph  in  the  separation  of  the  sphere 
of  conscience  and  conformity.     It  was  only  in  the  debatable 
borderland  of  the  two  that  the  Empire  challenged  this  inde- 
pendence.    Largely  allowing  personal  autonomy  and  private 
creeds,  there  was  for  the  loyal  statesman   a   point  at  which 
further  concession  was  impossible.     The  Greek  Church  never 
ceased  exhorting  believers  to  prove  and  test  dogma  for  them- 
selves, to  transform   faith   into   knowledge.     It  is   true   that 
formal  orthodoxy  was  of  vital  importance,  but  the  Easterns 
never  identified  this  with  lip-service  or  a  dull  compliance  with 
authority.     The   Western   Church,  with  its  Roman  tradition 
and  Augustinian  influences,  surrendered  more  to  the  Universal, 
visibly  and  beneficently  embodied  in  the  Hierarchy.     But  (as 
we  have  tried  to  show)  it  cannot  be  said  to  have  stifled  free- 
thought  and  private  judgment,  until  it  became  alarmed  at  the 
conspicuous  divorce  of  fact  and  theory,  ascertained  knowledge 
and  accepted  creed.     We  have  now  reached  the  second  great 
revolt  in  the  history  of  thought.     The  Renaissance,  far  more 
diffuse  and  varied  than   the  Sophistic  movement,  is  also  far 
more  weighty  and  long  enduring  in  its  results.     It  cannot  be 
summed  in  a  single  sentence,  or  exhausted  in  a  short  analysis 
of  its  signal  features.     It  covered  every  side  of  human  life,  and 
its  final  issue  was  the  Reformation.     Luther  might  well  have 
supposed  he  was  fighting  against  an  ungodly  secular  wisdom 


220    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

as  against  a  narrow  and  perverted  Italian  papacy;  but  in 
truth  he  was  the  last  in  the  long  series  of  Reformers  who 
sought  to  remove  the  shackles  of  the  personal  spirit,  and  who, 
alas  !  only  opened  the  way  for  a  more  cruel  tyranny. 

§  6.  To  many  it  will  always  be  matter  for  wonder  that 
periods  of  exceptional  enlightenment,  of  literary  brilliance,  of 
rapid  social  advance,  have  been  so  often  marked  by  a  return 
to  despotism.  The  phrase  *  Augustan'  applied  to  such  golden 
epochs  is  not  without  a  deep  significance.  We  may  notice 
that  this  attitude,  acquiescence  in  the  strong  hand,  is  no 
homage  to  legitimacy,  but  a  deference  to  sheer  force  and 
ability ;  it  is  no  revival  of  the  idea  of  parental  sovereign,  but 
a  new  conception  of  arbitrary  will.  In  effect,  pure  thought, 
the  reflective  earnestness  that  wishes,  with  Descartes,  to  sweep 
away  all  prepossessions,  is  somewhat  anarchic,  antinomian,  and 
unsocial.  It  is  precisely  this  dull-hued  edifice  of  respectable 
convention  that  arouses  its  doubt  or  its  disdain.  It  has 
a  standing  quarrel,  a  smouldering  resentment  against  society. 
Even  orthodox  inquirers  into  the  moral  sentiments  and 
the  laws  or  current  behaviour  of  civilised  countries,  must 
stand  aghast  at  the  chaos  of  incoherence  and  absurdity  which 
tolerates  the  fact  if  the  name  be  not  pronounced,  finds  ready 
excuse  or  tolerant  cloak  for  certain  classes  of  offence,  and  bans 
others  equally  sordid,  no  doubt,  yet  in  evil  effect  no  worse, 
without  appeal.  The  revival  of  the  Spirit  has  never  failed  to 
weaken  moral  cogency  or  to  soften  the  moral  fibre.  Tolerance 
and  breadth  of  view  is  incompatible  with  prophetic  indigna- 
tion. The  intercourse  of  East  and  West — silently  in  the 
penetration  of  Arab  culture  from  Spain,  loudly  in  the  religious 
wars  around  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  which,  beginning  with  hate 
of  zealots,  ended  in  something  akin  to  respect — weaned  the 
Western  peoples  from  conceit  and  undermined  their  sense 
of  exclusive  privilege.  A  cosmopolitan  complacence  entered 
European  society,  wherever  men  of  intelligence  passed  beyond 
criticism  of  the  existing  churchly  order.  Once  more  admira- 
tion was  felt  for  the  spontaneous  and  untutored;  and  the 
*Age  of  the  Despots'  was  regarded  with  indifference  or 
approval,  not  merely  because  a  certain  order  and  a  centralised 
court  afford  field  or  asylum  for  the  artist  and  poet,  for  the  man 
of  perverted  genius  against  outraged  society,  but  also  because 


CLAIMS  FOR  THE  INDIVIDUAL       221 

thought  fancies  it  can  detect  its  own  triumphs  in  the  success 
of  *Will,'  untrammelled  by  social  restraint,  unbiassed  by 
social  prejudice.  The  despot,  alien  or  illegitimate,  appealed 
to  no  hallowed  veneration  for  a  parent  Sovereign ;  he  claimed 
allegiance  in  virtue  of  his  brilliance  and  ingenuity  alone.  And 
as  Caesarism,  or  the  pious  expectation  of  a  coming  *  Saviour  of 
Society,'  flourishes  best  in  the  dead  level  of  democracy,  so  it  is 
just  in  an  intense  and  widely  expanded  culture  that  the  despot 
could  grasp  his  precarious  sceptre  without  scruple  or  question. 
Public  opinion  did  not  condemn ;  for  the  gifted  and  the 
ambitious  could  not  be  bound  by  the  slender  and  discredited 
ties  of  ordinary  moral  restraint.  Claims  for  the  benefit  of  an 
elect  few,  in  the  field  of  aristocratic  studies,  found  their 
counterpart  in  the  pretension  of  a  ruler  to  be  '  above  law,' — 
pretension  which  no  Roman  emperor,  and  no  accredited 
mediaeval  potentate  had  ever  raised.  It  is  easy  to  see  the 
peril,  not  merely  to  social  institutions,  but  to  current  civic 
practice  and  domestic  faith,  in  the  success  of  these  maxims  of 
unmixed  subjectivity.  But  the  glamour  of  the  Renaissance 
was  but  transitory ;  and  in  a  more  serious  Europe  the  selfish 
instinct  betook  itself  to  the  outlet  of  religious  emotion. 

§  7.  The  Peasants'  War  and  the  kingdom  of  Munster  awoke 
even  the  authors  to  the  perils  of  the  *  extreme  left '  in  the  new 
movement;  the  subjective  impulse  ran  riot,  without  proper 
content  and  training,  demanding  with  wild  violence  a  freedom  it 
could  not  profitably  employ.  The  individual,  rising  from  the 
basest  serfdom  and  subjection  to  authority,  recognises  no  halting- 
place  between  his  former  *  creaturehood '  and  the  crudest  pre- 
tensions as  an  immediate  and  inviolable  organ  of  deity.  To 
feel  one  with  the  Divine  Spirit  has  always  been  the  solace  of  the 
humble  and  the  oppressed ;  and  this  union  of  pride  and  nothing- 
ness is  invariably  found  in  the  mystical  temper,  which  can  never 
speak  too  highly  or  too  lowly  of  itself.  But  the  Reformed 
movement  recoiled  in  alarm  from  its  logical  issues ;  and,  as  we 
have  seen,  individualism  fared  hardly  at  the  hands  of  a  new 
and  more  vigorous  ecclesiastical  power  (from  which  tyranny, 
perhaps,  Mr.  Buckle  first  tore  the  veil),  or  lost  its  sense  of 
autonomy  in  following  the  precise  lines  of  orthodox  confession. 
The  duty  of  defending  the  cause  of  the  unit  against  the 
universal  fell  to  the  pure  philosopher ;  for  the  statesman  and 


2  22    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

jurist  were  too  much  occupied  in  safe-guarding  the  new 
autocracy  to  show  themselves  sensitive  to  individual  rights. 
The  principle  of  authority,  silently  undermined  or  openly  defied 
after  the  collapse  of  the  Papacy,  now  rose  into  prominence. 
Round  it  rallied  the  middle  classes,  always  the  real  arbiters  of 
national  destiny  and  development.  It  seemed  to  offer  order 
and  security  after  chaos  and  unmeaning  turmoil;  and  the 
saddening  experience  of  religious  conflicts  only  increased  men's 
respect  for  a  central  and  impartial  ruler,  who,  like  Henry  iv.,  was 
of  *  the  religion  of  all  good  men.'  The  philosophers,  who  were 
its  warm  supporters,  unlike  their  stoical  antitypes  of  austere  or 
theatrical  protest  under  the  Roman  Empire,  found  in  freedom 
of  thought  the  true  sphere  of  individual  independence. 
Throughout  the  seventeenth  century,  with  all  the  prevalent 
doctrine  of  mystical  submission,  there  ran  a  healthy  current  of 
liberty.  The  wise  men  gladly  resigned  to  still  competent  hands 
the  cares  of  office  and  popular  control,  if  they  might  pursue 
uninterrupted  studies  in  wild  and  unexplored  branches  of 
knowledge,  or  perhaps  seek  a  welcome  asylum  at  Court  from 
ignorant  prejudice.  Except  in  Spain,  where  the  sovereign  did 
but  endorse  the  hotly  religious  temper  of  the  people,  except 
in  the  rare  occasion  of  a  monarch's  penitential  reaction  or 
remorse,  the  secular  power  availed  itself  gladly  of  this  formid- 
able enemy  to  its  ancient  rival.  In  France,  it  looked  on  with 
amused  indifference  or  secret  pleasure  at  witty  or  acrimonious 
attacks  on  the  Church ;  and,  it  may  be,  felt  only  a  pained  sur- 
prise when  the  philosophers,  tired  of  one-sided  fight,  turned  their 
artillery  upon  State  institutions,  with  unexpected  vehemence, 
about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Freedom  of 
thought  and  expression  had  been  largely  conceded  by  the 
Government ;  a  cheap  scapegoat  was  tossed  now  and  again  to 
the  demands  of  a  dwindling  clerical  power;  the  wealthier 
and  influential  escaped.  There  were  few  Courts  that  did 
not  coquet  with  irreligion.  The  monarchical  idea  had,  to  its 
cost,  enfranchised  itself  from  any  religious  implication.  The 
Jesuit  Order  was  condemned  all  over  Western  Europe  by  the 
secular  power;  and  the  Pope  pronounced  the  dissolution  of 
his  last  and  staunchest  body  of  allies. 

§  8.  But,  in  spite  of  this  alliance,  the  future  lay  neither  with 
the  royal  and  sceptical  'first  servants  of  a  free  people,'  nor 


CLAIMS  FOR  THE  INDIVIDUAL       223 

with  the  learned  and  perhaps  generous  but  unpractical  men 
who  by  turns  flattered  and  lampooned  them.  It  lay  with  the 
constant  champions  of  the  social  order, — neither  with  the  rabble 
nor  their  late  masters.  The  eighteenth  century  was,  in  some 
aspects,  a  carnival  of  innocent  egoism,  of  facile  sentiment,  of 
cheap  tears.  The  new  age  saw  once  more  the  centripetal 
tendency  predominate, — a  willing  abandonment  of  impractic- 
able rights  to  one  who  knew  best  how  to  use  authority.  An 
age  eloquent  to  tedium  of  the  '  Rights  of  Man,'  had  secured, 
had  defined  none.  Hobbes'  theory  of  a  primitive  surrender 
to  a  single  ruler  almost  took  on  itself  historic  truth.  Caesarism, 
as  we  have  seen  earlier,  is  one,  perhaps  not  the  least  effective 
of  compromises  between  the  two  incompatible  Absolutisms, — 
of  State  and  of  man.  The  citizen,  flattered  at  being  consulted, 
cynically  aware  that  no  change  in  constitution  ever  changes  his 
real  dependence,  is  ready  enough  to  yield  to  the  '  strong  man 
armed.'  The  claim  for  liberty  retired  to  a  spiritual  or  an 
intellectual  realm,  which  now  became  far  more  important  than 
the  eighteenth  century  could  have  dreamt.  Certain  provinces 
of  life  preserve  their  autonomy ;  conscience,  religious  emotion, 
and  the  sphere  of  private  predilection,  which  increases  in 
times  of  material  comfort,  scientific  invention,  and  social  rest- 
lessness, and,  above  all,  among  peoples  where  the  direct 
interest  of  citizenship  is  slackened,  as  it  is  to-day,  in  the  vast 
extent  of  the  State.  Ever  since  the  Reformation  the  secularis- 
ing of  the  State  had  been  in  truth  complete,  though  neither 
statesmen  nor  peoples  were  conscious  of  the  severance ;  though 
wars,  in  name  religious,  in  truth  partly  national,  partly 
economic,  concealed  the  truth.  And  when  the  State,  after 
the  Revolution,  increased  and  developed  her  police  and  her 
coercive  machinery  for  the  sake  of  public  order,  it  was  obliged, 
in  the  growing  minuteness  of  this  external  supervision,  to  forfeit 
any  genuine  control  of  the  inner  life ;  it  is  curious,  even  to-day, 
to  notice  how  reluctant  it  is  to  make  the  confession.  The  logical 
inconsequence  of  the  English  has  maintained  a  peculiar  associa- 
tion of  Church  and  State,  alternately  threatened  and  respited  ; 
but  elsewhere  consistency  demands  their  complete  separation, — 
the  resumption  of  an  imperium  in  imperio^  two  suspicious 
rivals,  not  as  Cavour  anticipated,  libera  Chiesa  in  libera  Stato. 
It  is  perhaps  unusual  to  regard  the  last  century  as  a  time  when 


224  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

a  once  intense  interest  in  public  affairs  grew  slack ;  but  the 
opening  of  new  occupations,  'new  avenues  of  pleasure,  new  paths 
of  gain,  new  possibilities  and  interpretations  of  religion,  have 
reduced  to  a  secondary  place  this  once  absorbing  pursuit. 
The  individual  has  discovered  so  many  lines  of  private  and 
personal  development,  which  may  be  followed  without  the  leave 
of  State  regulation ;  it  is  obvious  to  all  but  optimistic  and  super- 
ficial observers  that  the  real  danger  lies  in  the  retirement  of 
the  rich  and  gifted  from  the  cares  of  domestic  or  civil  life,  in 
the  supineness  incident  to  all  diffused  'democracies,'  in  the 
autocracy  of  the  State  captured,  in  the  absence  of  legitimate 
guardians,  by  a  small  minority,  alert  and  unscrupulous.  In 
matters  of  religious  choice,  also,  the  individual  is  free,  though 
we  cannot  pretend  that  all  envy  and  animosity  is  allayed.  And 
the  outcome  of  the  often  unintelligible  conflicts  of  the 
nineteenth  century  is  this  :  the  State  in  its  own  domain  possesses 
enhanced  powers  and  is  reinforced  by  every  new  discovery ;  but 
the  individual  outside  of  this  is  more  free,  because  so  large 
and  so  valuable  a  part  of  life  lies  entirely  outside  this  control 
and  is  at  his  own  disposal.  In  the  lessening  of  moral  demands, 
the  tolerance  of  public  opinion  again,  man  enjoys  (in  certain 
respects  and  with  strange  and  notable  exceptions)  a  freedom 
undreamt  of  by  the  free  citizen  of  a  Greek  or  Mediaeval 
State. 

§  9.  It  will  not  be  expected  that  the  present  discussion  should 
treat  with  academic  nicety  the  fundamental  problem  of 
Freedom.  At  the  level  of  these  arguments,  where  the  real  and 
ideal  are  closely  and  inseparably  linked, — the  level  but  seldom 
transcended  by  the  average  man, — the  whole  question  of 
freedom  is  well  nigh  meaningless.  Forming  an  integral  part 
of  the  mental  equipment  in  each  one  (whatever  its  origin)  is  a 
sense  of  power,  choice  and  responsibility,  which  he  cannot 
shake  off  if  he  try.  In  a  practical  debate,  which  has  for  its 
aim  the  defence  of  the  chief  Christian  dogmas  as  essential  to 
moral  and  social  life,  no  one  will  blame  an  apologist  if  he 
keeps  his  foot  resolutely  on  the  high  road  of  existence,  clear  of 
any  grass-grown  by-paths  of  pure  theory ;  if  he  is  content  to 
examine  facts  and  experience.  Mr.  Mallock,  in  an  eloquent 
passage  in  the  Veil  of  the  Temple^  has  shown  us  how  in  the 
last  hundred  years  the  waves  (as  he  puts  it)  of  scientific  laws 


CLAIMS  FOR  THE  INDIVIDUAL       225 

and  fatal  sequence  have  engulfed  the  last  boasted  asylum  of 
free  activity.  To  the  thinker,  this  may  bring  a  feeling  of 
despair ;  but  action  soon  restores  the  zest  of  uncertain  conflict 
against  unknown  odds,  and  whatever  may  be  the  alien  and 
foreign  character  of  that  which  determines  conduct  in  *me,* 
whether  the  *  dead  hand '  of  ancestral  usage  or  scruple,  or  a 
transient  indwelling  of  the  Divine  Spirit  itself,  the  tyranny  is 
unfelt,  because  the  individual  is  somehow  identified  with  this 
indefinable  force.  Such  theoretical  doubt  can  never  seriously 
impair  the  vital  impulse,  the  enjoyment  of  the  struggle  and 
doubtful  issue.  Perhaps  a  more  urgent,  serious  danger  lies  in 
the  strange  hybrid  of  philosophic  and  religious  thought,  the 
metaphysical  mysticism  which  disconcertingly  alternates 
emotion  and  logic.  To  this  allusion  has  been  and  will  be  so 
frequent,  that  it  is  needless  to  enlarge  upon  the  obvious  defect 
it  shares  with  all  previous  and  kindred  systems.  It  neither 
explains  nor  justifies  the  emergence  of  the  personal,  which, 
whether  by  accident  or  providence,  or  by  some  inscrutable  and 
yet  purposive  law,  seems  to  have  been  the  goal  of  development 
at  least  on  this  earth.  After  the  painful  discovery  of  the  self,  as 
the  true  end  of  philosophy,  practical  ethics,  religion,  and  political 
agitation,  it  is  useless  to  point  out  that  the  discovery  is  after  all 
worthless.  We  are  still  left  with  an  acute  sense  of  its  truth. 
But  we  can  more  easily  shake  off  a  scientific  fatalism  which 
momentary  experience  contradicts — at  least  so  far  as  our 
feelings  are  concerned — than  the  benumbing  influence  of 
Pantheism.  Against  this  (whatever  its  precise  phase)  no  new 
arguments  can  be  levelled,  because  no  new  principles  are 
maintained.  The  tyranny  of  fact  we  can  overlook  and  forget ; 
but  if  it  come  to  us  in  a  half-moral,  half-pietistic  disguise,  the 
effect  is  far  deeper.  It  is  idle  to  repeat  that  in  such  a  universe 
good  and  endeavour  are  illusions,  and  the  only  end  of  the 
universe  intelligible  to  us  (with  our  narrow,  selfish,  and  human- 
istic outlook),  *'  the  glory  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  man," 
becomes  inconceivable.  The  sense  of  overpowering  mechanism 
induced  the  puritan  Stalwarts  in  the  Scientific  School,  like 
Huxley,  to  lay  all  the  greater  emphasis  upon  the  specially 
human  life  of  virtue  and  social  welfare.  Man  has  always  risen 
by  confronting  and  defying  Nature.  But  if  the  pressure  comes 
from  the  side  where  we  looked  for  help,  for  sympathy,  for  love, 
IS 


226    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

and  if  a  painful  consciousness  of  insignificance  be  the  only 
attribute  of  the  '  deity  within,'  what  more  powerful  solvent  can 
we  imagine  of  that  active  social  life  which  is  so  inextricably 
bound  up  with  the  doctrines  and  hopes  of  the  Gospel  ? 

§  lo.  Side  by  side  with  these  theoretic  denials  of  individu- 
ality we  see  the  necessary  counterpart  in  the  modern  claim 
for  immediate  enjoyment,  immediate  realisation  of  promises 
once  so  lavish.  A  word  must  be  said  about  that  School  of 
violence  or  of  vision  which  sees  in  all  government  an  unmixed 
evil.  Whether  we  believe  with  Calvin  and  Hobbes,  that  human 
nature  is  radically  mean  and  corrupt,  or  with  Rousseau,  that 
it  is  perverted  solely  by  its  rulers,  it  is  clear  that  if  authority 
is  to  be  founded  on  moral  rather  than  physical  force,  appeal 
must  be  made  to  the  generous  instincts ;  men  must  be  taken 
into  the  fullest  confidence  of  their  protectors,  and  treated  as 
if  they  were  much  better  than  they  are.  This  is  a  common- 
place of  the  most  narrow  experience  of  authority,  but  it  is 
constantly  forgotten  in  the  summary  or  reactionary  legislation 
of  to-day,  the  'administrative  right,'  which  for  State  purposes 
condones  the  violation  of  ordinary  moral  rule;  in  the  unfor- 
tunate dualism  of  constitutional  government,  which  has 
become  a  mere  tug-of-war,  diversified  by  loud  menace  and 
abuse,  none  the  less  mischievous  because  so  largely  artificial 
and  engineered.  The  claim  of  the  Anarchist  is  to  super- 
annuate all  obsolete  misrepresentatives  of  the  popular  will, 
to  reinstate  average  man,  to  expel  abstractions  and  the  fatal 
chimaera  of  patriotism  and  national  entity, — and,  on  its  most 
generous  side,  to  trust  men  as  open-handed,  honest,  and 
sympathetic  by  the  removal  of  restraint.  For  here  is  the 
secret  of  all  government :  "  Maluit,"  says  Tacitus  of  his 
father-in-law  and  a  mutinous  legion,  "videri  invenisse  bonos 
quam  fecisse."  Reference  has  already  been  made  to  Tolstoy's 
End  of  the  Age-,  and  in  this  ideal  document  and  in  the 
earnest  writings  of  Mr.  Auberon  Herbert  may  be  found  the 
most  temperate  exposition  of  a  system  wrongly  associated 
with  a  policy  of  secret  murder  alone.  This  is  no  place  to 
descant  upon  the  justice  of  such  claims  or  (it  may  be)  the 
vanity  of  such  hopes.  It  is  one  of  the  most  significant  of 
the  movements  by  which  the  subjective  spirit  has  endeavoured 
to  win  independence  from  a  tyrannical  objective,  anonymous 


REVOLUTIONARY  MAXIMS  227 

aii(J  intangible.  True  'democracy,'  as  the  Christian  Church 
can  conceive  and  welcome  it,  is  intimately  bound  up  with  such 
an  attitude  to  life,  trustful,  confident,  appealing.  Whatever 
may  be  the  errors  of  this  violent  challenge  to  existing  institu- 
tions, to  that  sensible  increase  in  coercion  which  followed  the 
scare  of  the  Revolution,  it  is  only  on  these  or  somewhat 
similar  lines  that  the  Church  can  recognise  the  value  of 
progress  or  the  worth  of  political  and  social  enfranchisement. 
And  herein  lies  the  reservation  with  which  Christians  regard 
the  work  of  the  State:  it  is  content  in  law  with  a  bare 
minimum  and  with  outward  conformity;  it  cannot  penetrate 
to  the  motive  or  ennoble  the  personal  spirit.  It  is  fair  to  say 
that  it  makes  no  such  exalted  claim.  And  it  is  for  this  reason 
that  the  mission  of  the  Church  is  indispensable  and  supple- 
mentary :  while  it  recognises  authority  and  order,  it  remembers 
that  the  '  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,'  and  sees  even  in  the 
mistaken  issues  of  the  doctrine  which  makes  the  unit  the 
only  real,  the  true  spirit  on  which  the  lines  of  State  develop- 
ment must  proceed  in  Western  society. 


Overt  Selfishness  of  the  Revolutionary  Maxims 

§  I .  Selfishness  and  Unselfishness ;  vagueness  of  these  terms  : 
the  curious  growth  of  undogmatic  social  '  altruism  '  in  the  nineteenth 
century  :  modern  thought  a  hybrid,  half  science  and  half  sentiment : 
unabashed  hedonism  of  pre-revolutionary  aims  :  the  modern  revival 
due  alone,  consciously  or  unawares,  to  Christian  influence  :  true 
reform  cannot  recognise  this  canon. 

§  2.  Revival  of  practical  and  doctrinal  Christianity,  in  the  last 
century,  a  marvel  of  history  :  Hegelian  use  of  Trinitarian  formula  : 
of  the  '  Common  Reason,'  and  continuous  corporate  life  and  tradition; 
almost  an  apology  for  Catholicism  :  a  reaction  against  anti-dogmatic 
Individualism  of  eighteenth  century  :  in  social  reform,  inspiration 
only  from  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel :  unfairness  of  the  taunt,  '  bank- 
ruptcy '  of  science. 

§  3.  Religious  impulse  in  the  nineteenth  century  movements  of 
Emancipation ' :  bold  venture  of  the  A  bolitionist,  in  defiance  of  all 
experience  :  man  to  be  treated  not  as  he  is  but  as  he  ought  to  be. 

§  4.  Contrast  of  the  maxims  of  pre-Revolution  philosophy  :  their 


228     THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

message  perverted  in  the  delivery  to  mere  incitement  to  overthrow  I 
a  direct  appeal  to  selfishness  :  oblivion  of  man's  inherent  desire  to 
serve  a  cause  :  calculating  and  contracting  temper  in  theology  [England 
and  Germany)  :  rapid  disappearance  of  the  '  Intellectuals  '  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  Revolution. 

§  5.  Emphasis  on  individual  rather  than  on  corporate  life  dis- 
tinguishes eighteenth  century  from  medicsval  ideals  :  republican  ideal 
compounded  of  incompatibles, — Greek  citizen  and  Greek  sage  :  Aris- 
tides  and  Socrates  :  real  discord  between  the  two  :  attempt  to  restore 
the  rudimentary  patriotism  of  primitive  times  must  always  fail. 

§  6.  Imaginary  figure  of  the  reforming  Ideal :  State  -  immersed^ 
and  State-escaping :  primitive  man  not  '  unselfish '  in  the  truest  sense 
except  for  use  :  the  philosopher  not  strictly  '  unselfish ' ;  and  in  any 
case  unsympathetic  :  character  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  unselfish- 
ness as  contrasted  with  mere  self-surrender  :  founded  entirely  on  the 
doctrine  of  the  worth  of  self :  no  substitute  for  this  energy. 


§  I.  There  is  nothing  more  perplexing  than  the  common 
use  of  the  terms,  selfish  and  unselfish.  They  have  a  rough- 
and-ready  practical  meaning,  are  easily  intelligible  to  the 
instinct  of  children,  and  (as  we  have  maintained  in  the  text 
of  the  Lectures)  correspond  to  a  fundamental  impulse  in 
ordinary  man,  which  for  brevity  and  clearness  we  have  likened 
to  the  zeal  of  St.  Christopher  in  the  well-known  legend.  It 
can  hardly  be  supposed  that  a  preacher  wishes  to  discredit  or 
throw  doubts  upon  an  especially  Christian  virtue :  "  He  that 
will  lose  his  life,  shall  save  it."  But  it  is  important,  in  the 
lazy  confusion  to  which  modern  thought  is  especially  liable, 
to  point  out  how  very  slender  is  the  logical  or  metaphysical 
basis  for  any  consistent  doctrine  of  'unselfishness,'  as  this  is 
generally  understood.  Modern  thought  is  half  science,  half 
sentiment;  the  glaring  discrepancies  between  the  traditional 
or  'mythological'  view  and  the  system  recently  ascertained 
and  believed  to  be  beyond  dispute,  are  reconciled  (at  least 
for  working  purposes)  by  an  appeal  to  the  common  instincts 
of  mankind.  And  these  are  not,  in  any  strict  sense,  founded 
upon  'reason'  at  all.  Pushing  aside  whatever  is  hard  and 
ruthless  in  the  scientific  creed  of  competition  and  extermina- 
tion, society  falls  back  upon  a  body  of  inherited  rules  and 
prepossessions;  and  these,  singularly  incompatible  with 
the  results  of  scientific  research,  may  well  constitute  a 
necessary  complement  and   balance.      Life  (it  is  impossible 


REVOLUTIONARY  MAXIMS  229 

to  insist  on  this  too  often  or  too  strongly)  is  far  too  complex 
to  yield  to  the  sway  of  a  single  set  of  rules;  and  it  is 
impossible  to  imagine  an  ethical  system,  applicable  to  our 
present  state  of  development,  which  derives  directly  from  the 
accurate  investigation  of  law,  and  does  not  borrow  either 
largely  or  entirely  from  the  precepts  of  the  Gospel.  Therein 
lies  one  significant  difference  from  the  thought  of  the  pre- 
Revolutionary  age.  It  must  be  confessed  that  one  turns  with 
something  of  relief  to  the  unabashed  and  candid  hedonism  of 
their  aims,  from  the  false  and  inopportune  sentiment  which 
in  treatises  on  mere  fact  and  pure  truth  is  introduced  to 
distort  the  clear  outline  of  system ;  coaxing  or  appealing  in  a 
region  where  only  law  incontrovertible  should  reign.  It  may 
be  as  well  to  lay  down  at  once  this  axiom,  which  is  by  no 
means  the  mere  prejudice  of  an  interested  partizan ;  that  the 
prominence  of  '  altruistic '  feeling  in  Europe  during  the  nine- 
teenth century  is  due  in  the  main  to  a  revival,  not  merely  of 
Christian  fellowship  but  of  Christian  dogma,  and  without  the 
continued  support"  of  the  latter  is  most  certainly  doomed  to 
extinction.  Not  indeed  that  educated  man  can  ever  dispense 
with  an  object  outside  himself  on  which  to  lavish  unstinted 
affection  and  devotion ;  but  it  is  certain  that  his  choice  would 
fall  on  some  Ideal  State,  or  some  individual  man  of  higher 
perfection.  He  would  not  be  likely  to  err  weakly  on  the 
side  of  instinctive  sympathy  with  the  failures  and  the  incom- 
petence of  life,  with  the  wrecks  of  humanity.  The  true 
reformer  would  steel  his  resolution  against  the  pitiful  com- 
plaints and  feeble  murmurs  of  those  who  are  nothing  but 
hindrances  in  the  *  path  of  progress.' 

§  2.  This  revival  of  doctrinal  and  practical  Christianity  in 
the  nineteenth  century  is  after  all,  and  with  all  allowance  for 
our  empty  churches,  one  of  the  standing  marvels  of  history. 
Whether  speculation  in  finding  the  key  of  the  universe  in  the 
Trinitarian  formula  conferred  a  real  benefit  or  opened  the  way 
to  cloudy  pietism  and  mischievous  allegory,  it  is  not  here 
pertinent  to  discuss.  But  it  is  none  the  less  significant  that 
aid  should  have  been  sought  in  the  *  arcana '  of  the  faith 
against  the  dry  morality,  the  cold  and  isolated  individualism, 
in  which  had  ended  the  practical  teaching  of  Hegel's  prede- 
cessors.     The   vivid   sense  of  corporate  life,  of  continuous 


2  30    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

tradition,  of  the  value  of  history  as  a  standard  and  a  guide, 
pulses  through  his  whole  system  ;  and  recalled  the  sequestered 
Revolutionary  units  once  more  into  a  harmonious  common- 
wealth. Much  of  his  writing  may  be  read  in  the  light  of  a 
deUberate  defence  of  the  Church  and  of  Catholicity.  Where 
he  praises  the  *  common  reason,'  apart  from  individual  genius 
or  caprice,  building  up  with  unconscious  dutifulness  the  fabric 
of  our  society,  his  arguments  tell  quite  as  much  in  favour  of 
the  Church's  doctrine  and  fellowship.  He  dispelled  the  illusion 
of  the  fictitious  unit,  or  masses  of  uncommunicative  units, 
out  of  which  both  religious  reform  and  political  theory  had 
created  an  imaginary  and  invisible  Church  and  an  arbitrary 
and  coercive  State.  Here  at  least  is  one  sign  of  a  warmer 
appreciation  of  Christian  lessons  than  we  can  discover  in  the 
anti-dogmatic  individualism  of  the  previous  century.  Mean- 
time the  artistic  sense  had  awoken  in  the  Romantic  Schools, 
and  sought  in  the  beauty  and  variegation  of  the  age  of  chivalry 
some  compensation  for  the  present  monotony.  Once  more, 
the  State  confining  and  restricting  its  function  to  suspicious 
policing  and  a  negative  attitude,  left  all  the  positive  and 
adventurous  domain  of  life  open  to  any  influence.  And  how 
great  a  field  there  was  for  the  efforts  of  the  indignant  and 
sympathetic  reformer!  In  spite  of  the  hesitating  eulogies  of 
the  great  Revolution  we  have  still  to  listen  to,  not  one  of  the 
hopes  for  which  men  had  written,  fought,  and  died  had  been 
as  yet  realised  :  in  the  new  industrial  age,  the  condition  of  the 
worker  left  (and  still  leaves)  far  behind  in  hopeless  squalor  and 
in  conscious  misery  the  lot  of  the  peasant  serf  in  the  pre- 
ceding age.  '  Sic  vos  non  vobis  ! '  Whatever  movement 
was  then  on  foot  to  benefit  the  masses  must  take  its  inspira- 
tion not  from  the  anachronism  of  a  classical  revival  of  citizen- 
ship, not  from  wild  and  destructive  schemes  of  jealousy  and 
revenge,  but  from  the  teaching  of  Christ,  the  still  living  embers 
of  the  Church-spirit.  It  would  not  be  difficult,  in  the  solemn 
and  pragmatic  manner  of  a  German  history,  to  show  a  priori 
that  the  development  could  not  have  been  otherwise,  could 
not  in  any  case  have  followed  different  lines.  But  where 
facts  and  their  lessons  are  clear,  there  is  no  need  to  pursue 
any  method  except  that  of  patient  and  modest  induction. 
We  need  lay  no  arrogant   emphasis  on  what   is  sometimes 


REVOLUTIONARY  MAXIMS  231 

termed  the  *  bankruptcy  of  Science/  the  failure  of  Idealist  or 
Romantic  thought  to  heal  the  wounds  of  practical  life ; — it  is 
eminently  unfair  to  demand  universal  application  from  any 
special  science ;  it  is  certain  that  neither  Science  nor  Art  can 
teach  morals,  or  create  other  than  utilitarian  or  aesthetic  canons 
of  behaviour.  It  is  therefore  not  strange  that  the  revival  of 
the  social  instinct  was  due  in  greatest  part  to  the  secret 
workings  of  the  Christian  spirit  on  the  average  kindly  heart. 

§  3.  The  reform  movement  in  the  previous  century  had  been 
classical  and  anti-Christian.  Where  the  present  endeavour 
for  social  redress  was  not  utilitarian,  merely  desirous  of  evading 
the  too  weighty  burden  of  a  governing  class,  of  avoiding  a  violent 
outbreak  by  parley  and  compromise  and  divided  authority,  it 
was  definitely  inspired  by  Christian  ideals.  And  the  aim  was 
not  overthrow,  but  reconstruction.  Kant,  who  had  learnt  from 
Rousseau's  theories  and  his  own  experience,  would  have  wel- 
comed the  Emancipation  of  the  Negro  as  the  legitimate  outcome 
of  his  pious  belief  in  *  man  as  an  end.'  This  movement,  where 
it  was  not  secretly  economic,  was  in  the  very  strictest  sense 
religious :  the  children  of  the  same  Father,  worshippers  at  the 
same  altar,  could  not  accept  the  social  distinction  of  absolute 
master  and  serf.  Without  this  faith  in  the  religious  equality 
of  mankind,  it  is  hard  to  see  what  motive  force  lay  behind 
the  age  powerful  enough  to  disturb  vested  interests  and  make 
men  contemplate  great  personal  sacrifices  unmoved.  Yet  the 
fervour  of  this  zeal  would  have  been  out  of  place  had  they  not 
firmly  adhered  to  the  teaching  of  immortality.  Every  social 
Utopia  seems  to  look  forward  to  a  form  of  State-serfdom ;  and 
had  the  sympathy  of  those  enthusiasts  been  limited  to  the 
present  life  and  sufferings  of  the  victims  of  plantation  cruelty, 
they  might  have  aimed  xd^Sh^x  positively  at  the  better  treatment 
of  individuals  than  negatively  made  provision  for  a  wholesale 
emancipation.  It  might  indeed  to-day  be  termed  a  piece  of 
fanciful  idealism  rather  than  a  sober  measure  of  reform.  It 
issued  with  all  its  disappointments  and  misreckonings,  not  from 
the  classical  tenet,  *  All  men  are  born  free,'  but  from  a  deep 
if  unconscious  conviction  of  the  individual's  infinite  worth. 
This,  in  sufficient  intensity  to  exert  real  influence  over  life 
and  conduct  and  ideal,  is  supplied,  so  far  as  we  know,  by 
religious  belief  alone.     It  cannot  be  given  by  philosophy,  which 


232    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

first  dramatically  isolates  the  individual  upon  a  pedestal,  and 
then  almost  with  the  sudden  deftness  of  a  conjuror  absorbs 
him  into  a  Supreme  Unknown ;  it  is  not  instilled  by  any  teach- 
ing of  facts,  by  any  interrogation  of  Nature ;  for  neither  Science 
nor  Nature  recognises  the  single  life.  In  defiance  of  this 
commonest  experience,  the  hopeless  anomaly  and  inequality 
of  men,  the  Abolitionist  preferred  to  make  a  bold  venture, 
which  was  wholly  one  of  religious  faith ;  to  regard  and  to  treat 
men  as  equal,  before  they  could  be  so  in  fact.  In  company 
with  a  devoted  and  perhaps  over  sanguine  band  of  Christian 
reformers  in  our  own  later  day,  they  boldly  proclaimed  the 
*  supremacy  of  moral  over  physical  law,'  and  threw  the  gauntlet, 
like  Professor  Huxley,  to  a  cosmic  process  and  to  economic 
fact. 

§  4.  It  is  far  from  our  purpose  to  disparage  the  earnestness 
or  question  the  principles  of  those  who  made  onslaught  upon 
a  corrupt  and  sceptical  hierarchy,  an  idle  aristocracy,  and  a 
selfish  or  puppet  monarchy.     But  they  could  replace  nothing  on 
the  site  of  the  ruins,  which  in  theory  they  contemplated  with 
such  satisfaction.      Their  attacks  were  sincere,  but  ignorant, 
unreasonable,  and  unhistoric.     Personally  brave  and  devoted, 
they  set  before  the  world  maxims  of  selfishness,  not  only  far 
below  their  own  practice,  but  even  below  the  enlightened  self- 
interest  which  was  prevalent  in  the  three  reflecting  and  disputing 
societies  of  France,  Germany,  and  England.     No  scheme  can 
be  popular  unless  it  comply  with  two  conditions:  (i)  it  must 
demand  some  present  sacrifice  for  the  cause ;  (2)  it  must  some- 
how guarantee  the  final  share  of  the  devotee  in  its  triumph. 
It  must   satisfy  man's  amazing  instinct  for  unselfish  service, 
which  Reason  and   the  *cool  moment'  cannot  contemplate 
without  astonishment ;   and  it  must  take  care  not  to  stultify 
itself  by  admitting   the   possibility   of  ultimate  failure.     The 
two  are  needful  correlates :   man's  whole-hearted  devotion  to 
God's   service;  God's   tender   care  for   the  individual.     This 
(we  must  reiterate  again  and  again)  is  the  minimum  of  religious 
belief — of  a  kind  sufficient  to  impel  to  action.  Now,  in  the  French 
*  Reign  of  Reason,'  which  it  was  vaguely  proposed  to  substitute 
for  the  chaos  of  impotent  institutions,  long  since  undermined, 
no    such    satisfaction  was    to    be    found.      In   spite   of  the 
semi-religious  fanaticism  which  M.  de  Tocqueville  very  justly 


REVOLUTIONARY  MAXIMS  233 

discerns  in  the  pioneers  of  this  movement,  they  roused  in  their 
followers  nothing  but  feelings  of  disgust  and  contempt  for  the 
existing  order ;  and  in  the  lowest  classes  resentment  and  desire 
for  speedy  vengeance.  Emanating,  as  all  attempts  at  reform 
in  history,  not  from  the  sufferers  but  from  the  righteous  and 
dissatisfied  members  of  the  privileged  class,  the  message  which 
left  their  lips  in  devout  indignation  reached  the  ears  of  their 
audience  as  a  mere  incitement  to  pillage,  and  to  satisfy  the 
rudimentary  passions  of  envy  and  greed.  It  was  a  direct  appeal 
to  selfishness  and  to  immediate  enjoyment,  which  refuses  to 
bide  its  time.  The  text-books  of  the  age  reveal  to  us  the  true 
ground- work  of  this  insurrection  against  authority.  Self-interest 
was  best  attained  in  a  body  of  free  fellow-workers;  in  that 
constitutional  or  anarchic  State,  from  which  so  much  was 
hoped;  in  the  removal  of  a  weak  central  administration, 
or,  as  most  preferred,  in  its  capture  by  the  intelligent  band 
of  unanimous  reformers.  At  the  same  epoch,  'theological 
utilitarianism '  expresses  (in  cumbrous  phrase)  the  calculating 
attitude  of  the  religious  temper  in  our  own  land;  the 
growing  demands  of  the  individual  and  the  strictness  of  moral 
law ;  and  in  Germany,  it  is  significant  that  the  interest  in  pure 
theology  and  the  Being  of  God,  sensibly  pales  before  an 
absorbed  keenness  in  the  problem  and  the  proofs  of  immortality. 
Partly  the  vague  and  negative  character  of  the  literary  reformers, 
partly  their  ignorance  of  human  nature,  partly  that  appeal 
which  fell  so  far  below  the  generous  instincts  of  their  hearers, 
might  account  for  the  disappearance  of  any  educated  control 
at  an  early  stage  in  the  development  of  Revolution.  The 
flight  of  an  idle  aristocracy,  whose  interests  had  been  artfully 
dissociated  from  their  natural  clients,  this  was  hardly  perhaps 
to  be  regretted;  but  the  retirement  or  ineffectiveness  of  the 
very  class  who  had  carefully  engineered  the  movement  of 
protest,  the  writers  and  philosophers  of  France,  left  the  field 
open  for  the  very  chance  they  had  most  warmly  opposed.  The 
seat  of  authority  in  a  stupefied  nation  was  usurped  by  a  clique 
who  masked  personal  enmities  under  patriotic  sentiment,  and 
who  provoked  the  inevitable  reaction  in  favour  of  pure  Will, 
pursuing  without  disguise  its  own  ends,  but  in  so  doing  con- 
ferring the  indirect  benefit  of  peace  and  order  on  the  whole 
country. 


234    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

§  5.  This  peculiar  emphasis  on  the  individual  and  his  finite 
aims,  rather  than  on  the  corporate  life,  distinguishes  the 
eighteenth  century  from  the  Middle  Age.  The  Ideal  redeemed 
man  which  floated  vaguely  before  the  eyes  of  the  educated, 
was  a  compound  of  the  early  Greek  citizen,  the  later  Greek 
sage,  and  the  Roman  subject,  who  could  appeal  direct  to  a  uni- 
versal recognition  of  the  '  Law  of  Nature.'  This  last  ingredient 
played  by  far  the  smallest  part  in  the  somewhat  incoherent 
amalgam.  This  ideal  figure  mainly  consisted  of  a  typical 
law-abiding  member  of  a  Hellenic  community;  whose  native 
and  spontaneous  devotion  to  his  home  and  State,  with  its 
pressing  needs  and  constant  demands  on  his  immediate  loyalty, 
was  supposed  to  be  reinforced  by  individual  reason,  musing 
on  the  problems  of  existence  and  its  own  place  in  the  whole, 
in  one  sense,  partial,  isolated,  and  estranged,  but  in  another, 
universal,  sympathetic,  and  all-embracing.  The  generous  but 
superficial  minds  of  the  eighteenth  century  worshipped  with 
indiscriminate  homage  Aristides  and  Socrates,  the  Cato  who 
expelled  the  first  entry  of  philosophy  into  Rome  and  the  Cato 
who  died  after  reading  the  Phoedo.  They  were  not  aware  of 
the  religious  basis  of  family  worship,  on  which  was  built  the 
ancient  city-state,  an  overgrown  village  of  kinsmen;  and 
they  did  not  appreciate  the  feud  which  raged  between  the 
conservative  yet  active  citizen  and  the  abstract  and  often  idle 
thinker.  For  it  is  obvious  to  any  student  of  the  classical 
period  that  the  cosmopolitan  coolness  of  the  latter  contributed 
in  no  small  degree  to  the  overthrow  of  the  State,  with  its  vivid 
and  immediate  appeal  to  self-interest,  to  instinctive  affection 
for  comrades,  at  least  in  theory  of  the  same  blood.  The  two 
ideals  are  utterly  inharmonious  and  divergent :  in  the  hundred 
years  of  the  Humanistic  School  at  Athens  the  great  leaders 
tried,  with  perfect  sincerity  but  to  no  purpose,  to  reconcile 
these  conflicting  claims.  Instinct,  custom,  and  emotion, 
buried  but  never  entirely  eradicated  in  the  philosophic  mind, 
strove  with  personal  conviction  and  logic ;  and  the  anti-social 
Schools,  as  we  must  often  repeat,  show  the  extent  of  the  failure. 
But  in  spite  of  this  hostility  the  motive  in  either  was  the  same — 
desire  to  realise  self.  When  this  aim  was  found  to  be  defeated 
by  the  narrow  prejudice  of  urban  life  and  by  the  well-meant 
curiosity  of  friends,   the  carping  vigilance  of  bystanders,   a 


REVOLUTIONARY  MAXIMS  235 

larger  area  was  sought  in  the  Universe  itself;  and  the  strange 
and  fallacious  title  'cosmopolitan'  was  accepted  as  an  ideal 
after  which  it  was  man's  duty  to  strive.  The  earlier  Greek 
citizen,  like  the  savage,  even  like  the  civilised  Chinese  to-day, 
had  no  conception  of  the  member  apart  from  the  whole,  of 
the  real  existence  of  the  son  cut  off  from  his  family,  of  the 
citizen  exiled  from  his  State.  This  dependence  on  a  cor- 
poration, as  it  were,  for  a  derived  life,  is  an  invariable  sign 
of  rudimentary  culture, — noble  and  generous  indeed,  it  may 
readily  be  allowed,  but  always  rudimentary,  and  to  be  tran- 
scended in  the  first  step  of  civil  evolution,  to  be  defied  at  the 
first  effort  of  independent  thought.  Who  with  even  a  shadowy 
knowledge  of  human  development  could  maintain  that  every 
step  forward  was  a  step  upward,  that  progress  always  set 
definitely  towards  an  ideal  goal  ?  It  is  impossible  not  to  regret 
with  Aristophanes,  with  Cephalus,  the  disappearance  of  the  old 
sanctions  and  the  old  simplicity.  But  the  forces  which  are 
moving  and  moulding  society  are  as  much  beyond  our  ken 
as  they  are  beyond  our  control. 

§  6.  The  imaginary  figure,  compounded  of  the  citizen  with 
his  imperfectly  awakened,  the  sage  with  his  morbidly  sensitive, 
self-consciousness,  hovered  before  the  minds  of  these  reformers, 
to  whom  Christianity  was  the  source  of  decadence  and  absten- 
tion, and  the  Middle  Ages,  no  less  than  the  Imperial  epoch  in 
Rome,  an  unspeakable  aberration.  In  the  proposed  restoration 
of  this  fictitious  type,  they  paid  no  heed  to  the  incongruity  of 
the  two  constituents,  the  State-contented,  the  State-escaping ; 
but  they  took  the  self-centred  basis,  which  was  the  one 
common  element  in  both.  It  is  no  discredit  to  the  early 
types  of  society  that  in  them  the  unit  calculates  his  own 
interest  by  the  sole  known  method,  deference  to  ancestral 
custom ;  it  is  we  who  are  to  blame  by  reading  into  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  savage  mind  virtues  (or  perhaps  qualities)  of  a 
far  later  evolution,  which  indeed  reflect,  not  the  self-confidence 
of  a  classical  age,  but  a  long  series  of  surrenders  to  a  malign 
Fortune,  ruling  over  an  evil  or  a  fortuitous  world.  It  is  true 
that  primitive  man  is  unselfish,  but  merely  in  the  sense  that 
he  has  not  found  himself,  is  unaware  of  his  own  independent 
being.  It  is  untrue  to  say  that  the  philosopher  is  unselfish, 
because  if  wisdom  mean  anything,  it  implies  the  justification 


2  36    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

to  an  inward  standard,  either  of  knowledge  or  approval  (we 
must  note  the  significant  difference  or  reservation)  of  all 
happenings  in  heaven  and  in  earth.  The  seeming  abnegation, 
which  puzzles  us,  or  perhaps  a  little  chills  our  sympathy  by 
its  verbal  expansiveness  at  the  close  of  some  great  personal 
system  of  the  Universe,  is  in  reality  the  triumph  rather  than 
the  denial  of  the  highest  self.  The  sage  does  not  bow  to  an 
unknown  outside,  letting  his  individuality  flow  outward  in 
homage,  but  he  takes  the  Universe  in  to  himself;  he  is\\.\ 
he  embraces  everything,  till  nothing  is  left  unexplained  or 
unrelated;  nay,  it  has  no  existence  apart  from  his  thought; 
he  is  the  one  and  universal  Sovereign  ;  it  is  no  wonder  that 
with  so  wide  a  heritage  and  dominion,  he  gives  up  readily  the 
trivial  titillations  of  average  life.  Whatever  may  be  the  merits 
of  such  an  outlook,  it  cannot  comprise  among  them  the  virtue 
of  sympathy,  which  is  not  merely  the  best  but  the  only  whole- 
some source  of  'unselfish'  action.  How  often  unselfishness 
is  preached,  not  from  love  of  others,  but  from  hate,  disgust,  or 
despair  of  self!  The  pride  of  Diogenes  looks  out  from  his 
tatters ;  and  the  maxims  of  self-surrender  never  lose  sight  of 
self.  The  Christian  spirit,  which  is  no  self-regarding  austerity, 
no  mere  dwelling  upon  personal  defects  and  blemishes  (has 
not  God  need  of  all  sorts  ? ),  but  a  genuine  self-forgetfulness, 
in  interest  in  others,  in  service  of  a  cause,  finds  no  counter- 
part in  the  tenets  of  antiquity,  or  in  that  republican  doctrine 
which,  regardless  of  the  anachronism,  strove  to  revive  them. 
The  modified  success,  which  we  may  with  no  Uttle  shame 
and  some  hesitation  attribute  to  our  social  efforts  to-day, 
is  due  to  the  inspiration  of  the  Gospel  message,  in  many  no 
doubt  unconscious,  to  the  secret  workings  of  the  Spirit.  This 
lesson  is  as  far  as  possible  from  any  meaningless  sacrifice  of 
a  personality,  which  logic  and  science,  coldly  correcting  our 
conceits,  alike  pronounce  to  be  without  worth  or  permanence ; 
it  teaches  or  rather  confirms  the  natural  instinct  of  brother- 
hood and  fellow-feeling ;  and  in  matters  of  secondary  import 
the  test  is  not  obedience  to  law,  but  respect  for  the  weaker,  **  for 
whom  Christ  died."  There  is  no  sign  either  in  past  history 
or  in  a  survey  to-day  of  the  world  and  its  spiritual  influences 
which  warrants  us  in  the  belief  that  a  substitute  for  this  energy 
is  forthcoming. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  III— A 

On  the  Original  Independence  and  Antithesis  of 
Religious  Feeling  and  Moral  Behaviour 

§  I .  Some  definitions  of  Religion  and  Morality :  the  general  con- 
trast between  the  subjective  and  the  objective,  Gospel  and  Law :  to 
Morality,  the  law,  to  Religion,  the  individual  of  real  import :  Morality 
always  unfinal. 

§  2.  Religion  a  plea  for  the  exceptional :  Religion  encourages  effort 
and  comforts  failure  :  Nature-worship,  a  passing  and  irrational  thrill : 
gradual  increase  of  intimate  and  personal  religion  :  Masonic  individual- 
ism of  the  Roman  epoch  in  all  religions  :  the  protector  instead  of  the 
world-creator  or  remote  ancestor :  religion  a  matter  of  choice  not  of  birth. 

§  3.  Religion,  supposed  by  some  to  have  its  origin  in  State  imposture, 
as  a  valuable  engine  of  police,  is  opposed,  and  often  directly  hostile  to 
the  State :  Thuggee :  absoluteness  of  Religious  claims  to  surrender  self 
and  override  ordinary  Morality  :  Joy  of  the  religious  martyr  contrasted 
with  sadness  of  the  moralist :  the  unreserved  submission  laid  to  charge  of 
Jesuits,  true  of  all  genuine  religious  feeling. 

§  4.  Breach  between  Religion  and  Morality, — as  between  statecraft 
and  Morality  in  the  times  following  Machiavelli  and  the  Reform  : 
Charles  I. ;  and  the  Jesuits  :  era  of  simplicity  :  appeal  to  immutable 
Morality  as  sheer  utility :  Religion  and  Morality  confused  and  identified 
in  the  eighteenth  century  by  all  Schools  ;  so  Reason  and  Nature  :  with 
the  failure,  alike  of  Church  and  Enlightenment,  the  question  arose 
again  :  new  scope  for  '  supererogation  '  in  the  new  moralised  State. 

§  5.  Origin  and  Nature  of  the  new  '  regimentation '  and  dis- 
cipline. 

§  I.  That  Religion  and  Morality  have  indeed  some  points 
of  agreement  but  many  points  of  difference,  might  seem  to  be  a 
commonplace.  But  this  truth  is  repeatedly  forgotten  or  over- 
looked by  the  religious  apologist,  who  to  secure  acceptance 
with  an  always  wider  audience  identifies  Religion  with 
customary  Morality ;  and  also  by  the  ethical  Rationalist  (now 
almost  an  obsolete  type),  who  wishes  to  restrict  the  province 
of  the  Church  to  the  teaching  of  honesty  and  self-control,  the 

237 


238    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

function  of  the  priest  to  the  duties  of  a  State  policeman.  By 
Religion  we  do  not  of  course  mean  a  State-Establishment : — 
otherwise  this  will  come  under  the  head  of  that  inherited  com- 
plex, which  with  its  teachings  so  many  of  us  accept  without 
further  question.  The  term  is  here  used  in  the  supposed 
*  Protestant'  sense — personal  and  direct  access  to  a  Saviour 
and  Protector,  or  at  least  to  a  Creator.  And  this  is  the  only 
true  definition  of  the  religious  feeling :  "  he  took  him  apart 
from  the  multitude  .  .  .  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ? "  No 
doubt  the  awakened  sinner  will  gladly  accept  the  ordinary 
channels  of  grace,  the  sense  of  support  and  fellowship  given  by 
corporate  life  in  a  Church ; — but  all  this  will  have  a  new  mean- 
ing and  value  in  the  light  of  his  inward  and  incommunicable 
experience ;  both  higher  and  lower,  for  the  standard  and  the 
test  is  now  within  him.  Now  Morality  is  a  word  of  very 
doubtful  usage ;  strictly,  it  should  mean  the  following  of 
custom  and  the  acceptance  of  such  restraints  as  society  from  time 
to  time  puts  on  caprice  or  violence ;  but  it  is  also  often  used 
to  convey  the  notion  of  that  intrinsic  and  personal  principle, 
which,  whatever  may  be  its  source  and  derivation,  prescribes  to 
its  fortunate  possessor  a  far  higher  and  more  careful  rule  than 
society  can  ever  demand.  It  will  be  said  that  this  is  a  need- 
lessly tedious  way  of  stating  the  truism,  that  Religion  and 
Morality  alike  pass  from  the  objective  to  the  subjective  stage ; 
that  the  law,  human  or  Divine,  is  no  longer  written  and  engraven 
on  tablets,  but  the  "  word  is  very  nigh  unto  thee,  in  thy  mouth 
and  in  thy  heart,  that  thou  mayest  do  it"  (Deut.  xxx.  14). 
"  This  is  the  covenant  that  I  will  make  with  them  after  those 
days,  saith  the  Lord,  I  will  put  my  laws  into  their  hearts, 
and  in  their  minds  will  I  write  them"  (Heb.  x.  16)  .  .  . 
"  and  they  shall  not  teach  every  man  his  neighbour  ...  for  all 
shall  know  Me  from  the  least  to  the  greatest"  (chap.  viii.  11). 
This  transition  is  indeed  simply  from  acceptance  on  trust  and 
in  fear  to  acceptance  in  love  and  with  personal  test  and  know- 
ledge; in  a  word,  from  the  Law  to  the  Gospel,  and  in  this 
phrase  everything  is  contained  and  implicit.  But  it  will  not 
be  doubted  that  in  common  parlance  to-day  it  is  the  term 
Religion  which  preserves  a  notion  of  the  intrinsic  and  intimate, 
the  voluntary  and  spontaneous,  while  the  other  still  gives  us 
the  more  rigid  outline  of  conformity  to  existing  usage,  obedi- 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY  239 

ence  (often  unconvinced)  to  coercive  law.  One  of  the  chief 
disputes  of  the  time  centres  round  the  '  teaching  of  MoraUty.' 
There  are  warm  supporters  of  its  independence,  BlBuktov  apa  rj 
*Ap€Trj.  But  there  is  a  large  and  I  believe  growing  body  of 
men  who  cannot  accept  Morality  as  ultimate  or  as  self- 
sufficient  j  as  involving  any  but  a  paradoxic  result.  In  order 
that  it  may  explain  and  justify  one  of  its  rules  to  the  inquisit- 
ive consciousness,  it  has  to  leave  its  own  domain  and  encroach 
on  the  sphere,  borrow  from  the  convictions  or  belief  of 
Religion.  The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek :  it  is  only  Religion 
that  recognises  the  individual. 

§  2.  I  see  no  reason  to  modify  what  is  said  in  the  Lectures 
on  Religion  when  it  becomes  personal,  as  an  asylum  or  retreat 
from  the  tyranny  of  convention  or  the  fear  of  Nature.  Religious 
fervour  always  pleads  for  the  exceptional :  first,  for  an  excep- 
tional forgiveness,  for  pardon,  for  mercies  strictly  uncovenanted ; 
next,  for  an  opportunity  for  exceptional  service,  a  devotion  of 
self  and  its  faculties  in  gratitude  for  blessings  received — or 
anticipated.  No  play  of  logic  or  coolness  of  Rationalism 
could  ever  destroy  the  emotional  element  in  Religion :  "  We 
love  Him  because  He  first  loved  us."  Nature  may  indeed  in 
some  temperaments  evoke  a  thrill  of  '  cosmic  emotion,'  a  sense 
of  awe  at  the  mightiness  or  the  beauty  or  the  incomprehensibility 
of  the  Universe.  But  however  legitimate  such  raptures  may 
be,  it  is  clear  they  can  but  remind  us  of  our  nothingness  :  they 
are  powerless  to  encourage  effort  or  console  failure.  And  yet 
this  is  what  is  meant  by  Religion,  whenever  the  word  is  used  by 
average  mankind,  outside  the  text-books  of  dogma  or  apology. 
In  ancient  Greece,  there  was  the  special  parent  or  guide  or 
protector,  first  of  the  family  and  local  haunt,  next  of  the 
individual,  in  his  fast-growing  self-importance;  and  we  have 
(as  a  caution)  the  heroic  figures  of  Sarpedon  and  Hippolytus, 
not  to  mention  the  sinister  legends  of  Tantalus  and  Ixion. 
The  special  tutelars  did  not  lose  their  comforting  nearness 
and  identity  because  their  familiar  features  were  found,  as 
barriers  broke  down,  in  countless  other  divinities  throughout 
Hellas.  Then  poetry  stepped  in  and  attempted  to  give 
coherence  to  the  whole,  and  provided  a  detailed  theogony. 
Before,  men  did  not  puzzle  about  the  relation  of  these  many 
Divine  figures  to  the  dark  background  of  Fate,  or  the  closer  yet 


240    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

not  much  more  sympathetic  Nature.  The  notion  that  a  God 
created  the  world  appears  very  late  upon  the  scene  of  thought ; 
and  in  answer  to  a  passionate  and  instinctive  demand  that 
things  shall  somehow  correspond  to  man's  sense  of  aim  and 
righteousness.  Religion  was  in  a  certain  sense  natural,  and 
recognised  tremendous  and  untutored  forces  at  work,  who 
could  not  be  completely  brought  within  the  scale  of  human 
vision  or  before  the  tribunal  of  human  judgment.  But,  as  with 
the  Jews,  true  religious  feeling  found  for  its  object  domestic 
and  national  gods ;  or  an  intimate  personal  protector.  When 
the  State  religion  broke  up  quietly  and  survived  only  in 
immemorial  rite,  the  philosopher  reverted  to  a  natural  deity, 
life  and  substance  of  the  world,  whom  he  vainly  strove  to  invest 
with  the  peculiar  qualities  that  man  desiderates  in  his  Deity, 
as  bringing  Him  nearer  to  His  creature  by  common  attributes. 
Others,  of  whom  we  see  the  type  in  Appuleius  (indeed,  in  the 
great  band  of  Mithraists  throughout  the  Roman  world),  found 
that  religion  was  not  a  matter  to  be  *  born  into  '  by  the  mere 
fact  of  family  and  common  ancestors,  but  to  discover  for  one's 
self,  to  deserve  by  trial  and  discipline,  to  enter  by  painful 
and  perhaps  long-deferred  initiation.  This  Masonic  in- 
dividualism, rather  of  special  choice  than  national  privilege, 
had  indeed  always  been  in  the  Mysteries  an  emotional  outlet 
for  pious  fervour,  wearied  with  the  openness  and  formality  of 
the  sterotyped  ritual,  the  runic  unintelligibility  of  the  liturgy. 
But  under  the  Roman  Empire,  that  happy  arena  for  idiosyn- 
crasy, this  side  of  Religion,  its  most  personal  and  intimate, 
came  into  prominence  not  merely  in  Christianity,  but  in  most 
other  heathen  cults. 

§  3.  Throughout,  religious  feeling,  beginning  acutely  in  a 
protest  against  law,  seems  to  rise  above  social  usage,  by  en- 
tailing a  stricter  conformity  to  certain  duties,  a  purer  personal 
life  than  the  State  could  either  recognise  or  enforce.  The 
sceptic  who  tried  to  write  the  '  Natural  History '  of  Religion 
vacillated  (to  put  out  the  '  dream-theory '  of  Lucretius  and  the 
Atomists)  between  a  physical  origin  in  dread  of  unknown 
forces,  and  a  deliberate  political  imposture.  "  Primus  in  orbe 
deos  fecit  timor : "  we  may  contrast  with  the  *  Critias '  fragment, 
where  Religion  is  a  mere  device  of  the  State,  following  the 
citizen  into  his  secret  privacy  and  inner  thoughts  by  means 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY  241 

of  this  invisible  yet  ubiquitous  police.  But,  as  history  has 
proved,  Religion  is  never  content  to  maintain  this  subordinate 
and  ancillary  position.  It  cannot  accept  without  scrutiny  the 
rules  which  the  State  draws  up  for  its  subjects,  and  it  can 
claim  to  override  them  when  its  own  peculiar  welfare  or 
teaching  is  at  stake.  It  is  never  a  very  stable  or  faithful 
public  servant :  its  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world ;  its  aim  is 
beyond,  and  often  counter  to,  the  political  end.  It  demands 
more  of  its  followers,  because  it  has  a  secret  code  of  its  own ; 
but  also,  in  a  certain  sense,  less,  inasmuch  as  no  merely 
social  law  is  binding  against  the  interest  or  the  doctrine  of  the 
smaller  organisation.  We  see  in  Thuggee  the  original  anti- 
thesis of  our  two  terms  :  all  States,  not  even  excepting  Sparta 
and  Venice,  proscribe  assassination ;  but  some  religions  may 
require  it !  Cases  are  by  no  means  uncommon  where  an  act 
universally  condemned  by  public  opinion  is  performed  as  a 
sacred  duty,  a  religious  rite;  and  the  permitted  licence  of 
certain  pagan  worships,  as  Astarte  and  Mylitta,  is  no  warrant 
for  supposing  a  wide  relaxation  of  that  moral  sternness,  habitual 
as  it  would  seem  to  the  savage ;  rather  the  reverse.  Religion, 
it  must  be  remembered,  is  the  most  absorbing,  importunate, 
and  unsatisfied  of  all  the  objectives  to  which  man,  never  self- 
sufficing,  can  surrender  himself.  On  occasion  he  must  give 
up  everything,  even  his  moral  observance,  his  purity  of  life : 
the  names  of  Jael,  Judith,  and  Maher-shalal-hashbaz  will 
prove  that  even  among  the  Jews,  whose  religion  was  far  more 
closely  implicated  with  outward  and  visible  morality  than  the 
rest,  certain  situations,  as  critical  and  exceptional,  were  held 
to  exempt  from  the  usual  stringency.  It  has  been  constantly 
urged  against  the  Jesuits  that  religion,  conceived  as  the 
welfare  of  the  Holy  See  and  the  prosperity  of  the  Order, 
becomes  a  universal  solvent  of  every  obligation.  Such  attacks 
may  indeed  in  part  be  justified,  but  they  show  unlooked-for 
ignorance  of  a  very  rudimentary  truth — that  religious  feeling, 
when  personal,  is  not  content  with  obeying  the  regulation  of 
the  State,  with  sinking  into  submission  to  a  civil  department. 
It  claims  life  as  an  absolute  whole,  without  a  single  reservation, 
such  as  Saul  tried  to  make  (from  motives,  it  may  well  be  con- 
ceived, of  pity  and  compassion).  Unlike  the  State,  it  does  not 
demand  sacrifice  without  compensation.  Mr.  James,  though 
16 


242    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

he  scarcely  alludes  to  immortality  in  his  book  on  religious 
experience,  makes  it  abundantly  clear  that  abnegation  is  no 
mournful  asceticism,  no  *  death  at  duty's  call ' ;  loss  of  pleasure, 
nay  of  selfhood,  is  a  supreme  rapture.  It  might  be  hard  to 
recall  both  moods  in  the  poet's  '  duke  et  decorum  pro  patrict 
mori.^  We  do  not  find,  in  our  more  introspective  age,  pro- 
pensity and  reason  go  so  easily  hand  in  hand ;  but  if  we  must 
divide  them,  it  may  perhaps  be  necessary  to  give  the  former 
to  the  religious  martyr,  the  latter  to  the  melancholy  if  self- 
approving  hero. 

§  4.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  Religion  can  ensure  greater 
sacrifices  than  the  State,  and  can,  without  question,  act  as  the 
*  Dispensing  Power '  of  the  most  cherished  rules  of  its  rival. 
It  was  this  sense  that  armed  the  darts  of  the  Rationalist 
attack.  It  was  by  no  means  the  conscientious  oppression, 
but  the  dishonest  intrigue  of  post  -  Machiavellian  Church 
and  State  on  the  Continent,  that  excited  the  earliest  and 
more  lucid  of  its  foes.  When  the  most  virtuous  of  English 
Sovereigns  was  tainted  by  this  indirectness,  when  the  doctrine 
'  the  end  justifies  the  means '  was  accepted  as  a  maxim  in  a 
religious  order  and  practised  in  secret  by  the  courts  of  Western 
Europe,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  simple-minded  took  refuge 
in  a  Church  of  the  Elect,  the  educated  in  the  *  natural  Reason.' 
Men  appealed  either  to  'eternal  and  immutable  morality,' 
with  Cudworth  and  the  Cambridge  School,  or,  contemptuous 
of  any  metaphysical  sanction,  sought  to  found  conduct  in 
civil  life  on  pure  utility,  either  social  or  individual  welfare. 
England,  always  inclined  to  Teutonic  individualism,  re- 
formed (or  reduced)  her  religious  establishment  so  as  to  be 
well  within  the  limits  of  average  conformity.  It  expelled  (not 
indeed  without  reason)  the  Extremists  and  '  Enthusiasts,'  whose 
pretensions  to  the  sole  guidance  of  the  inner  light  might 
indifferently  lead  to  sainthood  or  libertinage.  It  became  the 
handmaid,  the  preacher  of  pure  morality ;  and  it  may  be  again 
pointed  out  that  the  Masonic  liturgy  well  reflects  the 
prudently  complacent  temper,  the  sober  charity,  sympathetic 
yet  by  no  means  exacting,  the  scanty  dogmatic  postulates,  of 
that  era.  Men  laboured  with  astonishing  industry  to  show 
that  Christianity  was  pure  morality,  the  restatement  of  an 
original  law,  forgotten  or  obliterated.     Conduct  was  the  whole 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY  243 

of  life;  and  Kant,  who  has  much  of  the  'Anglican'  spirit 
from  his  Scotch  descent,  views  with  suspicion  anything  that 
seems  to  go  beyond.  Throughout  the  eighteenth  century, 
Religion  and  Morality  (as  also  Nature  and  Reason)  were 
constantly  and  indeed  unpardonably  confused.  The  Church- 
State  of  the  Enlightenment  sought,  like  Catholicism,  to 
universalise ;  to  embrace  all  in  a  single  formula,  to  admit  no 
exception  to  rule,  to  level  down  where  it  could  not  level  up, 
to  derive  the  whole  of  life  and  experience  from  a  unique  root. 
Such  Monism  failed,  as  all  monistic  efforts  must.  When  the 
old  regime  and  (what  is  often  overlooked)  its  successful  rival, 
the  Enlightenment,  perished  together  in  the  French  Revolution, 
the  question  had  once  more  to  be  put  to  an  age  ready,  in  its 
nakedness  and  exhaustion,  to  seize  on  any  and  every  answer, 
What  is  the  precise  relation  of  Religion  and  Morality?  It 
may  be  at  once  answered  that  Religion  had  taken  under  its 
protection  what  may  be  termed  the  '  supererogative '  element 
in  Morals.  It  seems  difficult  to  convince  men  that  the  more 
perfect  the  social  organisation,  the  more  restricted  the  field 
of  moral  action.  Combined  action  and  careful  instruction  of 
the  young  may  reduce  that  which  now  demands  a  critical  and 
precarious  choice  to  such  formal,  rules  as  we  consult  in 
sanitation  or  etiquette:  it  will  then  be  quite  clear  that  a 
minority,  dissatisfied  with  such  automatic  customary  observance, 
will  seek  to  rise  above  it  in  the  small  field  still  accorded  to 
spontaneity;  others,  impatient  of  control,  will  seek  to  fall 
below  it,  or  openly  to  defy  its  restraint. 

§  5.  The  narrowing  of  this  field  of  possible  error,  temptation, 
indeterminate  choice,  is  to  some  the  weakness,  to  others  the 
strength,  of  civilised  society.  But  it  is  only  the  fact  which 
concerns  us  here.  The  one  certain  outcome  of  the  vague 
struggles  of  the  Revolution  was  to  arm  authority  with  fresh 
powers,  with  chances  of  closer  supervision.  The  inventiveness 
of  scientific  progress  is  always  on  the  side  of  authority  and 
capital:  humanum  paucis  vivit  genus.  The  forces  which 
from  the  very  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  stood 
behind  the  nominal  leaders,  were  no  longer  aristocratic ;  the 
real  but  prosaic  interests  of  the  middle  class  were  predominant : 
public  order,  security  and  expansion  of  commerce,  certainty 
of  contract,  judicial  integrity.    The  '  Regimentation  '  of  society 


244    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

proceeded  apace,  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  a  pure  and  generous 
Liberalism,  which  had  far  more  sympathy  with  Rousseau  than 
with  Hobbes.  Once  more  disappointed  with  human  nature 
and  the  results  of  free  competition,  even  larger  powers  were 
(perhaps  with  a  sigh)  made  over  to  the  Government.  Unex- 
pected economic  issues — the  ousting  of  the  yeoman  and  small 
holder,  the  industrial  slavery — warranted  an  encroachment  on 
the  rights  of  capital.  The  last,  most  Christian  and  idealistic, 
maxim  of  the  early  Revolution,  the  sacredness  of  the  individual, 
was  abandoned.  Men  were  dealt  with  not  as  units,  but  as 
groups  and  in  the  mass ;  and  society  passed — here  rapidly,  there 
with  obvious  reluctance — in  half-unconscious  transition,  from  a 
belief  that  legislation  could  do  nothing  to  the  conviction  that 
legislation  can  do  everything.  Those  who  lately  had  held,  in 
their  eager  enthusiasm  for  uncorrupt  human  nature,  that  the 
sphere  of  Government  should  be  as  small  as  possible,  were 
now  anxious  to  enlarge  it  indefinitely.  The  great  and  eternal 
feud  between  '  Democracy '  and  Science  presented  itself  anew 
in  the  rivalry  of  the  expert  and  the  amateur.  The  growing 
complexity,  growing  burdens  of  Government,  and  (it  must  be 
added)  its  growing  suspiciousness,  implied  the  increase  of 
functionaries  and  bureaux.  While  political  reformers  were 
never  tired  of  extolling  with  unconscious  irony  the  blessings 
of  personal  liberty,  the  equality  of  the  toiler,  the  political 
judgment  of  the  illiterate,  they  were  hasting  at  the  same 
time  to  transform  the  mass  of  the  people  into  well-drilled 
automata — not  indeed  with  any  deliberate  policy  of  servitude ; 
forces  too  deep  to  analyse,  and  certainly  far  beyond  the  com- 
prehension of  those  whom  they  controlled,  hurried  a  society 
which  prated  of  freedom  into  a  regimental  discipline.  And 
in  the  enlarged  field  of  original  choice  (for  discipline  cannot, 
with  all  its  efforts,  account  for  the  whole  of  life),  religious,  social, 
philanthropic,  the  sphere  of  the  spirit  and  the  conscience. 
Christian  dogma  and  Christian  tradition  exerted  a  new  and 
unexpected  influence.  To  this  revival  is  due  in  no  small 
measure  the  unconcealed  antagonism  between  Church  and 
State.  Religious  feeling,  wistful  or  dogmatic,  controls  the 
still  considerable  element  of  'supererogation.'  It  is  not  so 
much  antithetic  to  current  morality  as  supplementary. 
Granted  a  legal  minimum,  it  prescribes,  according  to  individual 


GOD  AS  GENERAL  245 

capacity,  an  ideal  maximum  to  be  striven  after.  Not  to  every 
rich  young  man  did  Christ  say,  "  Go,  sell  all  that  thou  hast " ; 
it  is  a  special  and  particular  vocation.  This  perhaps  could 
not  be  better  expressed  than  in  the  words  of  the  Bishop  of 
Birmingham:  "Within  the  area  secured  by  legislation,  the 
positive  and  characteristic  Spirit  of  Christ  had  its  vantage 
ground ;  and  that  was  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice "  (St.  Mary's 
Commemoration,  1 906).  Where  the  political  development  has 
worked  unhappily,  leaving  only  to  the  Church  the  sphere  of 
willing  and  gratuitous  service,  is  just  in  this  increase  of 
enactment,  coerpive  and  spoliatory  legislation,  without  any 
appeal  to  principle,  only  to  sordid  interest.  "We  love  Him 
because  He  first  loved  us,"  is  the  secret  of  the  Christian 
incentive.  It  is  no  wonder  that  in  the  portion  of  life  which 
is  still  autonomous  all  the  known  influences  are  Christian; 
that  in  the  threatened  banishment  of  religious  teaching  no 
substitute  is  forthcoming  to  arouse  the  generous  emotions ; 
which  after  all,  and  however  closely  they  must  be  watched  and 
guided,  are  the  sole  motive-powers  in  modern  as  in  ancient  life. 


B 


On  the  Conception  of  God  as  General,  rather 
THAN  AS  Judge 

§  I.  Character  of  'Law,'  to  excite  hostility:  growing  dislike  of 
restrain* :  dutifulness,  a  fundamental  trait  in  primitive  culture  : 
with  '  enlightenment '  it  disappears  :  all  political  reflection  tends 
towards  withholding  allegiance  from  any  alien  authority :  supposed 
transfer  of  power  to-day  to  a  '  majority  *  has  wrought  little  change. 

§  2.  Significant  refusal  to  recognise  law  {Education  in  England)  : 
*  conscience  final  arbiter  for  each  '  :  Law  takes  an  arbitrary  character 
at  the  time  of  the  Reformation  and  the  new  competitive  nationalities  : 
all  systems  unite  in  Absolutism  {political,  Divine,  metaphysical)  : 
reaction  in  the  eighteenth  century  :  law  the  mere  condition  of  present 
welfare  and^  future  blessedness  {according  to  common  sense  not  to 
arbitrary  decree)  :  laws  mere  rules  of  self-interest,  forestalling  caprice 
with  kindly  prudence. 

§  3.  This  '  popular  '  philosophy  not  popular  enough  :  Calvinism 
disdains   to   explain   law   by   human   analogy :    Deism,   profoundly 


246    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

humanistic,  moral,  and  simple  :  its  speedy  collapse  :  the  mysterious 
regains  ground  :  natural  bias  of  Protestantism  towards  worship  of  the 
Unknown. 

§  4.  Mysticism  and  its  unanswerable  appeal  to  experience  :  the 
'  Union  '  :  legalism  never  transcends  dualism :  all  human  thought 
and  judgment  relative  :  object  of  law  can  only  be  the  welfare  of  the 
mass  :  in  eighteenth  century,  law  condescends  to  reason  and  argue, 
professing  its  proper  aim  to  be  use  :  men  criticise  Divine  law  from 
same  standpoint  as  human. 

§  5.  Eternal  punishment,  its  lessened  significance  :  God  no  longer  as 
absolute  Judge  :  notion  of  arbitrary  force  passed  into  realm  of  nature  and 
State  :  sense  of  Divine  effort  in  Christianity :  this  desire  to  procure 
a  sanction  for  human  endeavour ,  the  legitimate  counterpart  of  the 
desire  for  a  place  of  repose  :  the  paradox  of  religion  :  both  needs 
must  be  satisfied  :   Christ  as  a  Captain  of  free  soldiers. 


§  I.  It  is  difficult,  perhaps  impossible,  to  divest  *law'  in 
the  eyes  of  average  men  of  its  arbitrary  and  unaccountable 
character.     The  supposed  change  from  an  irresponsible  ruler 
or  oligarchy  to  popular  arbitrament  has  done  as  yet  very  little 
to  lessen  this  feeling.     Laws   are   still   drawn  up  by  mixed 
bodies  of  experts  and  amateurs,  tempered  to  meet  a  general 
and  lukewarm   approval,   often    forced   into   incoherence   by 
timely  compromise,  and  to  the  general  public  distasteful  or 
unintelligible.     At  this  mention  of  Law  in  the  abstract,  all 
that  is  questioning,  sceptical,  and  revolutionary  in  the  spirit 
awakens.     And  this  is  the  real  meaning  of  maturity — not  to 
take  on  trust,  but  to  submit  to  individual  judgment :  freedom 
of  conscience  consists  in  nothing  else.     It  is  typical  of  a  very 
prevalent  ignorance  of  human  nature  to  believe  that  reverence 
for  law   is   an    achievement   of    advancing    civilisation,   and 
peculiarly  appropriate  to   an   age  of  'free   democracy.'     No 
greater  mistake  could  be  made.     The  whole  political  develop- 
ment suggests,  the  whole  political  theory  recommends,  that 
every  man  consider  law  calmly  in  relation  to  himself  and  his 
needs,  obeying  only  in  so  far  as  he  can  approve ;  the  overthrow 
of  existing  restraint  is  a  duty,  and  discontent  is  the  condition 
or  source  of  advance.     Absolute  end  in  view  there  is  none, 
and  at  no  stage  in  a  fluent  process  is  any  sanctity  discoverable 
which  could  silence  the  criticism  and  arrest  the  innovating 
hand.     Undoubtedly  public  law  has,  like  religious  belief,  its 
irreducible  minimum ;  but  open  and  serious  debate  is  held  to- 


GOD  AS  GENERAL  247 

day  over  questions  which  less  than  a  century  ago  were  decreed 
beyond  the  reach  of  doubt  or  assault.  Can  it,  for  example, 
be  supposed  for  a  moment  that  the  State,  if  able  to  extricate 
itself  completely  from  Christian  influence,  will  maintain  intact 
that  peculiar  system  of  sexual  relations,  taboos,  and  penalties, 
in  which  it  is  hard  to  distinguish  the  origin,  whether  State's 
utility  as  summa  lex^  Christian  idealism,  or  prejudice  of  a 
narrow  middle  class?  If  it  is  difficult  even  in  the  smallest 
community  to  agree  upon  statutes  which  receive  unanimous 
homage,  it  is  impossible  in  the  overgrown  society  of  a 
modern  State,  where,  by  the  very  fact  and  theory  of  the 
constitution,  it  is  always  a  minority  that  is  in  power.  If  law 
excites  only  covert  defiance  in  the  natural  man  (of  whom  St. 
Paul  in  Romans  vii.  shows  a  profound  and  sympathetic 
knowledge),  it  is  idle  to  suppose  that  the  future  of  Western 
society  will  show  any  substantial  increase  in  the  law-abiding 
principle.  Deference  to  convention  is  an  unmistakable  mark 
of  rudimentary  and  primitive  society;  once  shaken  (like  the 
confidence  in  a  benevolent  autocrat),  it  cannot  be  reinstated. 
The  sign  of  all  'enlightenment*  is  coolness  and  relativity; 
sur  tout  point  de  zele  I  Emotion  may  creep  in  shamefast  by 
a  back  door;  Reason  may  later,  nay  must,  make  an  alliance 
with  sentiment,  to  stir  at  all :  ovBlv  y  Aiavota  Ktvct :  just  as  the 
painstaking  studies  of  logic  and  scholastic  merge  at  last  in 
Mysticism.  But  let  us  keep  detached  and  separate  the 
criticism,  which  must  be  impartial  and  without  bias ;  and  the 
loyalty,  with  which  as  citizens  we  accept  after  due  discus- 
sion a  result  we  may  personally  disapprove.  We  are  not 
predicting  any  violent  upheaval;  but  it  is  well  to  remember 
that  the  average  man  has  been  taught  to  withhold  respect 
from  that  which  he  has  not  made,  or  cannot  understand 
himself.  This  is  the  fundamental  postulate  of  any  system 
within  even  distant  approach  to  genuine  democracy.  Law,  let 
us  resume,  if  suspected  of  arbitrary  character,  of  interested 
and  partizan  motives,  will  command  no  obedience ;  and  evasion 
will  not  merely  be  generally  condoned  but  recommended. 

§  2.  We  have  recently  seen  a  remarkable  instance  in  our 
country  of  this  reference  of  law  to  individual  approval 
or  dissent.  It  is  only  too  apparent  that  free  institutions, 
statesmen's    integrity,    open    debate    cannot     '  universalise ' 


248    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

particular  enactments,  cannot  overpower  conscientious  objec- 
tion. And  whatever  may  be  the  inconvenience,  whatever  the 
disappointment  of  those  who  believe  nothing  is  easier  to  elicit 
and  interpret  than  the  popular  will,  it  is  well  that  it  should 
be  so.  The  standpoint  of  such  refusal  to  follow  the  '  majority ' 
is,  if  narrow,  at  least  moral.  It  preserves  at  least,  even  in  a 
mistaken  way,  a  principle  threatened  in  the  multiplied  re- 
sponsibility of  the  State  :  that  a  large  part  of  life  must  remain 
outside  the  interference  of  a  secular  State;  that  conscience, 
as  Cardinal  Newman  wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  must  for 
each  be  the  final  arbiter.  There  is  no  need  here  to  discuss 
the  possible  perversion  of  the  conscience,  paraded  as  a  disguise 
for  unworthy  motives.  I  call  attention  to  the  broad  principle 
of  resistance  '  for  conscience'  sake,'  here,  not  in  a  country  where 
religious  and  secular  animosities  divide  the  nation  into  openly 
hostile  camps,  but  where  the  vast  bulk  of  the  people  are  still 
agreed  in  loyalty  to  the  broad  doctrines  of  a  common  faith. 
Let  us  now  ask.  What  in  such  an  age  is  our  attitude  to  God 
as  Lawgiver  ?  Clearly  this  cannot  constitute  an  appeal  for  our 
services  or  our  love. 


Jehovah's  Jinger  wrote  the  Law  ; 
Then  wept ;  then  rose  in  zeal  and 

awe, 
A  nd  the  dead  corpse  from  Sinai's 

heat 


Buried  beneath  His  Mercy-Seat, 
O  Christians  !  Christians  !  tell  me 

why 
You    rear    it    on     your    altars 

high  ? 
(W.  Bi.AVL^,  '  Gates  of  Paradise:) 

From  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  law,  human 
and  Divine,  tended  to  withdraw  itself  proudly  from  contact 
with  the  vulgar,  and  to  become  centralised,  arbitrary,  irrespon- 
sible. The  individual,  still  recognised  in  the  petty  manorial 
courts  as  a  unit  with  rights,  still  viewed  by  the  Director's 
casuistry  as  an  *end  in  himself,'  became  insignificant  before 
the  unified  law  of  France  or  England,  the  everlasting  fiat  of 
doom  or  salvation.  The  real  relation  of  the  universal  and  the 
particular  was  never  examined  or  defined.  It  was  held  by 
Jesuit,  Spinoza,  Richelieu,  Roundhead,  that  man  was  a  sub- 
ordinate member  in  a  great  scheme  or  system;  even  at  the 
height  of  conscious  conflict  he  was  but  the  vehicle  of  a  purpose 
greater  than  himself,  'a  vessel  of  grace  or  wrath/  (though  he  is 
careful  to  interpret  this  Pivine  foreknowledge  according  to  his 


GOD  AS  GENERAL  249 

predilection).  In  the  subjective  reaction  of  the  eighteenth 
century  this  deference  to  law  is  changed.  Religious  en- 
thusiasm had  everywhere  decayed ;  monarchy  was  no  longer 
implicitly  trusted:  it  had  displayed  evident  signs  of  human 
frailty ;  in  France  it  had  failed  of  its  chief  aims ;  in  England, 
had  been  replaced  by  a  clever  and  intriguing  oligarchy.  Law 
was  a  mere  compact  and  convention,  not  the  edict  of  a 
superior  in  goodness  and  intelligence.  Throughout  that  age 
Law  became  the  mere  condition  of  present  comfort  or  of 
future  blessedness.  The  small  yet  fervent  circle  of  Calvinistic 
mysticism  might  take  comfort,  as  do  all  mystics,  in  reposing  on 
absolute  certainty,  especially  if  this  assurance  was  personally 
hopeful.  But  to  most  thinkers  within  and  without  the  Church, 
laws,  moral  or  political,  were  just  the  rules  of  self-interest, 
invented  (for  no  grand  ulterior  purpose  out  and  beyond 
individual  convenience)  by  a  benevolent  and  by  no  means 
encroaching  sovereign ;  just  as  the  dogmas  of  Christianity 
were  no  esoteric  mysteries,  but  (to  Toland  and  to  Lessing 
alike),  so  far  as  they  were  true,  the  setting-forth  for  the  benefit 
of  the  unleisured  and  ignorant  of  truths  transparent  to  the 
cultured  intelligence, — and,  it  must  be  avowed,  commonplace 
to  the  last  degree. 

§  3.  Yet  this  was  the  strong  side  of  the  '  popular '  philosophy 
of  that  age :  its  resolution  to  accept  nothing  which  could  not 
be  related,  in  understanding  or  in  use,  to  the  individual 
consciousness.  It  is  not  superficial  because  it  is  'popular,' 
but  because  it  is  not  popular  enough ;  because  no  pains  were 
taken  to  trace  the  deep  things  of  the  heart,  the  genuine  but 
secret  springs  of  human  action.  In  the  Deist  as  in  the 
Calvinist  system,  God  entered  into  reckoning  only  at  the  first 
beginning  and  the  final  close  of  the  destiny  of  the  universe  or 
the  single  soul.  In  both  a  place  was  left  for  judgment  and  for 
retribution.  The  latter,  weighted  as  it  was  with  the  dogma  of 
predestination,  could  not,  like  the  former,  commend  to  the 
normal  intelligence  or  the  rudimentary  notions  of  justice  a 
dogma  which  rejected  all  such  standards.  Deism,  anxious  to 
retain  against  the  evidence  of  science,  surely  and  steadily 
accumulating,  man's  place  and  dignity,  raises  human 
qualities  to  Divine  honours,  good-will,  artistic  contrivance, 
moral  aim.     God  reappears,  after  a  long  absence,  at  the  close 


250    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

of  the  drama.  The  world  and  man  have  been  left  during  the 
interval  to  their  native  resources  :  the  guidance  of  physical  law, 
disturbed  by  no  favouritism  or  miraculous  intervention;  the 
light  of  natural  reason  and  conscience,  amply  sufficient  to  secure 
happiness  through  obedience  to  its  simple  conditions.  Life 
was  easy  to  the  prudent ;  the  facts  of  the  universe  were  clear ; 
nothing  was  needed  but  to  remove  the  ruined  fabric  of  obsolete 
mythology  that  kept  out  the  sun.  But  the  brief  career  of 
Deism,  its  sudden  collapse  or  silence  about  the  middle  of  the 
century,  is  a  strong  proof  of  the  hold  of  the  mysterious  on  the 
human  mind.  '  Reasonable  religion '  disappeared,  or  at  least 
renounced  any  claim  to  effective  control.  Men  plunged  again 
into  the  solace  of  irrevocable  law.  Edwardes  and  Wesley  are 
different  types  of  one  and  the  same  movement  towards  a  recog- 
nition of  a  Supreme  Power,  of  whom  it  is  true,  "  My  thoughts 
are  not  your  thoughts,  neither  are  My  ways  your  ways."  In 
both  (in  spite  of  the  missionary  vigour  which  sometimes 
accorded  so  strangely  with  their  tenets)  we  see  clearly  the 
natural  trend  of  the  Protestant  to  quietism,  to  a  Church  of  the 
Elect,  to  individual  assurance,  towards  a  veneration  which  is 
in  the  last  resort  a  worship  of  the  unknown.  And  against 
this,  there  must  be,  prima  facie^  no  immediate  objection; 
the  doubt  arises  not  in  hearing  the  dogma  that  the  "judgments 
of  God  are  unsearchable  and  His  ways  past  finding  out,"  but 
in  testing  the  credentials  of  the  prophet  who  claims  to  know 
them.  If  one  must  be  candid,  the  Roman  Church  insists  far 
less  on  the  arbitrary  and  authoritative.  Dogma  has  been 
carefully  built  up,  not  by  individual  cleverness,  but  by  inspired 
councils,  by  modest  scholastic  induction  of  authorities.  The 
papal  control  was  not  above  law,  nor  was  the  doctrine  un- 
reasonable. But  the  Protestant  movement,  to  which  Heine, 
in  a  pamphlet  of  singular  brilliance  and  inaccuracy,  traces  free 
rational  thought,  abases  the  human  intelligence  as  it  disparages 
human  merit.  It  is  far  more  strictly  'monastic'  than  the 
Catholic  saint  in  his  hermitage.  It  opens  the  field  for  the 
reverence  for  the  unknown  and  unknowable,  the  Night  of 
Novalis  and  the  mystics,  Spencer's  indecipherable  First  Cause, 
which,  among  the  increasing  certainties  of  Science,  is  so 
strange  a  feature  in  our  speculation  to-day.  But  for  Religion  to 
lose  contact  with  Reason  is  almost  worse  than  to  relax  its  hold 


GOD  AS  GENERAL  251 

on  Justice.  Universal  in  its  claim  over  human  life,  the 
*credenda'  must  satisfy  our  instinct  for  righteousness,  and 
cannot  possibly  demand  worship  for  that  which  in  fancied 
majesty  or  conceit  withdraws  altogether  out  of  the  field  of 
human  observation.  It  is  easy  to  discover  an  object  of 
affectionate  regard  nearer  home. 

§  4.  The  mystic  in  all  time  has  the  unanswerable  plea  of 
personal  experience.  God,  to  his  logic,  may  be  the  nameless 
darkness  of  Dionysius,  the  indifferent  ground  of  Cusanus  or 
of  Eckhart,  but  to  his  soul  a  tasted  bliss.  Against  the  reality 
of  these  subjective  visions  frigid  argument  beats  in  vain. 
But  the  legalist  has  no  such  recourse.  Law  and  its  subject 
or  victim  remain  irreconcilably  opposed,  and  the  dualism  is 
ultimate.  The  expression  '  glory  of  God '  only  seeks  to  cloak 
ignorance.  It  is  the  defect  or  the  merit  of  the  human  mind — 
but  in  either  case  inalienable,  lSlov  koL  dva<^aip€Tov — that  it  can 
only  conceive  things  in  relation  to  itself,  in  terms  of  itself. 
It  cannot  put  off  the  Kantian  spectacles,  through  which,  never 
issuing  out  of  its  unsympathetic  isolation  into  the  core  of 
things,  it  views  the  universe.  And  it  cannot,  in  any  fancied 
detachment,  resist  applying  a  moral  standard,  a  test  of  value, 
or  of  *  righteousness,'  or  of  pleasure,  to  its  experience  :  a  local 
and  humanistic  canon  indeed  with  which  to  plumb  infinitude. 
But  who  has  ever  refrained  from  giving  a  verdict  so  based  as  from 
an  equitable  tribunal  ?  Is  there  any  philosopher  who  can  dis- 
guise his  antipathy  or  his  approval,  confronted  with  the  whole, 
with  the  supreme  need  of  correlating  it  to  himself?  For  it  is 
only  speculative  philosophy  which  can  afford  to  be  impersonal ; 
and  speculative  philosophy  is,  on  its  own  showing  and  the 
public  judgment,  incomplete.  What  is  the  purpose  of  Law  ? 
It  is  surely  playing  with  thought  to  define  it  other  than  as 
the  welfare  of  the  many,  guarded  by  interdict  and  control, 
embodied  in  solemn  phrases  which  represent  the  lessons  of 
past  experience,  enforced  on  the  mass  for  their  good  by  the 
rulers,  human  or  Divine,  few,  mature,  and  responsible.  The 
individual  who  throws  himself  gladly  into  devotion  to  a  cause 
or  loyalty  to  a  person  looks  with  suspicion  at  the  majesty  of 
Law.  When  autocracy  had  to  justify  itself  to  ordinary  critics, 
the  French  kings  explained  their  benevolent  motives  in  pre- 
ambles of  an  ingratiating  clearness.    Law,  hitherto  unamenable, 


252  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

like  \}^Q  pati-ia potestas^  to  any  questioning,  then  took  the  public 
into  its  confidence.  A  reactionary  or  a  soldier  might  reproach 
this  concession  as  dangerous  to  the  arcana  imperii,  in  the 
significant  and  recurrent  phrase  of  Tacitus.  But  the  whole 
end  of  political  life  is  at  once  secured  if  by  such  patient 
colloquy  the  citizen  is  convinced  that  the  new  statute  aims 
solely  at  his  interest ;  that  he  is  not  a  tool  in  the  hands  of 
scientific  experimenter  or  theoretical  charlatan.  Assured  of 
this,  he  will  cheerfully  obey.  And  it  must  be  remembered 
that,  in  spite  of  the  divorce  between  religious  and  actual  life, 
more  and  more  accentuated  in  the  last  four  hundred  years,  men 
will  take  the  same  maxims  and  principles  to  guide  their  verdict 
on  the  Divine  Law  as  they  have  already  been  taught  to  apply 
to  human  legislation. 

§  5.  In  one  notable  point  of  dogmatics  there  has  been  no 
revival  of  conviction :  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment. 
In  the  sense  of  a  subjective  hatred  and  defiance  of  good, 
which  would  find  happiness  in  hell  but  misery  in  heaven, 
it  must  always  remain  a  dreadful  possibility.  But  as  a 
penalty  imposed  from  without  for  offences  of  youth  or 
ignorance  it  has  all  but  vanished  from  the  treatise  or  the 
sermon.  It  is  indeed  hard  to  dispute  that  the  '  entire '  con- 
ception of  God  as  Judge  has  retreated  into  the  background. 
The  notions  of  force  and  irresponsible  power  having  passed 
into  nature  and  State,  the  appeal  in  Christianity  is  not  to 
fear,  or  even  the  hope  of  future  recompense,  but  to  the 
immediate  delight  of  willing  service.  In  the  Churches  there 
has  been  remarkable  increase  in  missionary  zeal  and  social 
interest,  a  return  to  closer  contact  with  the  practical  concerns 
of  life.  The  religious  life  is  a  serious  conflict;  those  may 
perhaps  think  otherwise  who  by  religion  mean  the  '  sense 
of  being  a  perfect  member  of  a  perfect  system.'  Now,  in 
the  perpetual  paradox  of  religious  experience  it  is  vain  to 
expel  this  complementary  side,  of  peace  in  the  midst  of 
war,  of  Divine  nearness  in  the  midst  of  abasement  to  creature- 
hood.  Nor  need  we  find  fault  with  those  who  lay  on  it  too 
great  and  too  exclusive  stress,  for  without  such  alternate 
over-emphasis  on  the  Divine  and  human  in  the  Christian 
message,  'strength  made  perfect'  only  'in  weakness,'  the 
balance  of  truth   must  suffer.      But  we  are  writing  of  the 


GOD  AS  GENERAL  253 

average  experience,  which  'counts  not  itself  to  have  appre- 
hended.' And  to  such  it  is  the  human  life  of  our  Saviour, 
as  a  supreme  manifestation  of  God,  that  gives  courage  and 
hope.  *  What,'  says  Schelling,  in  an  almost  inspired  moment, 
'What  if  God  wouW  enter  the  world  of  discipline  and  of 
suffering  so  as  to  become  perfect,  so  as  to  learn  obedience, 
*  though  He  be  Lord  of  all  ? '  Here  under  Behmen's  influence 
is  the  point  of  transition  from  the  motionless  and  indifferent 
ground,  not  merely  with  Hegel  to  a  semi-purposive  process, 
but  to  a  fully  conscious  person.  Mill  believes,  not  without 
good  reason,  that  we  find  all  the  saints,  heroes,  and  martyrs 
of  religion,  and  all  the  humbler  workers  who  have  left  no 
name,  to  have  been  upheld  by  the  thought  of  'fellow- 
service.'  There  are  two  sides  of  pious  enthusiasm,  the  active 
and  the  theopathetic,  typified  by  Martha  and  Mary.  The 
religious  idea  must  somehow  unite  in  itself  the  conviction  of 
a  motionless  calm  at  the  heart  of  things,  and  the  sense  of 
a  close  protector  and  sympathetic  friend  to  help  one  in  the 
struggle.  No  other  theory  of  the  Divine  Nature  comes  nearer 
to  satisfying  both  these  instincts  than  the  doctrine  of  the 
Risen  Lord,  who  has  'passed  behind  the  veil.'  To  one, 
unity  the  ideal,  if  not  found  at  once,  snatched  and  forestalled 
by  reasoning  faith  or  proved  against  proof  by  pious  logic ;  to 
another,  effort  and  a  sense  of  obstacles  gradually  surmounted, 
secrets  only  unfolding  themselves  to  the  ardent  searcher. 
To  one,  Spinoza  or  Emerson  the  type;  all  here  and  now 
complete;  no  advance,  no  purpose;  truth,  immediate,  whole, 
and  entire.  To  another,  Lessing's  part  bold,  part  timid 
rejection  of  this  unconditional  gift ;  for  to  such  temperament 
conquest  and  achievement,  as  the  path  to  perfection  or  to 
knowledge,  contested  inch  by  inch,  outweighs  all  the  joys 
of  possession.  The  stimulus,  the  incentive,  to  much  Christian 
activity  to-day,  to  much  secular  well-doing  and  impatience  of 
wrong,  is  this  sense  of  military  service  under  a  General  who 
Himself  has  gone  through  the  ordeal  of  war  like  the  meanest 
of  His  soldiers.  We  do  not  complain  if  the  mystic  chooses 
to  dwell  on  the  comforting  assurance  of  peace  and  harmony 
as  already  secured.  But  Christian  zeal  receives  its  inspira- 
tion from  a  belief  in  the  present  imperfection  of  the  world; 
from  the  conviction  that,  by  our  means,  God  will  accomplish 


2  54  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

His  designs ;  He  who  is  not  a  master  of  slaves,  but  a  Captain       j 
of  free  soldiers,  Himself  made  perfect  through  suffering. 


On  Surrender  to  the  Unknown 

§  I.  Mysticism,  the  most  real  of  experiences  :  incommunicable  : 
the  strictly  religious  form  only  toys  with  nihilism  and  is  genuinely 
personal :  another  kind  boasts  of  nothingness  :  '  hedonism '  of  the 
religious  mystic  :  pessimism  of  other  surrenders  to  the  indefinable 
and  unconscious. 

§  2.  Will  or  Faith  alone  can  sum  up  the  Universe  as  a  totality: 
ultimate  unities  in  philosophy  out  of  fashion  to-day  :  specialism  of 
modern  thought :  the  English  School  discounts  the  pretension  of 
speculation  to  have  discovered  Unity  :  only  '  provisional '  or  '  working 
hypothesis  '  :  a  practical  need  makes  us  apply  a  comprehensive  term 
to  the  Universe  :  problem,  Can  this  central  unity  become  a  partizan  ? 

§  3.  Religious  feeling  arises  from  this  desire  — '  The  Lord  is  on 
my  side  '  ;  spirit  of  favouritism  *  in  the  earliest  personal  impulse 
to  religion  :  keen  sense  of  dualism,  of  a  real  struggle  at  the  root  of 
religion  :  lulling  effect  of  pure  monotheistic  systems,  whether  of  will 
(Islam)  or  pure  Being  {Hindu) :  Christian  belief  reads  God's  char- 
acter in  a  human  life. 

§  4.  '  Humanism  '  of  the  Christian  faith  :  ultimate  antitheses  : 
the  twofold  demand  of  the  Divine  nature  —  peace  and  aid  in  fight  : 
this  latter  bears  the  first  emphasis  in  Christian  belief,  not  the  final. 

§  5.  Growth  in  Greece  of  man's  humanistic  demands  on  the  central 
power  :  it  is  gradually  invested  in  human  attributes  :  after  Aristotle, 
abandonment  of  the  anthropocentric  point  of  view  :  significance  of 
Platonic  revival,  and  Gospel  simplicity  :  the  Gnostic^  starting  from 
intellectual  need,  falls  back  into  pure  irrationalism  :  except  in  Africa 
and  under  Augustine's  influ^ncey  the  Church  never  surrenders  to  the 
unknown  as  such. 

§  6.  Attitude  of  Tertullian  —  the  message  to  be  accepted  because, 
not  in  spite  of,  its  paradox  :  Septimius  Severus,  embodiment  of  a 
like  principle  of  irresponsible  sovereignty  :  scholastic  movement  a 
half-conscious  protest  against  Augustinianism  :  Absolutism  revived 
by  Protestant  reformers,  though  they  started  from  freedom  and  the 
standard  of  individual  conscience  :  this  development  wholly  in  keeping 
with  the  general  movements  of  seventeenth  century. 

§  7.  Supreme  aim  of  the  eighteenth  century  —  to  eliminate  the 
unknown,  mysterious,  and  unaccountable  :  reaction  against  clearness 
and  vaunted  simplicity  in  the  nineteenth  :   transparency  a   demerit 


SURRENDER  TO  THE  UNKNOWN     255 

to  the  new  school  of  Obscurantism  :  this  emphasised  by  the  general 
sense  of  uncertain  aim  and  irresistible  forces  :  falsification  of  hopes 
and  designs  in  every  part  of  social  development. 

§  8.  Perverted  meaning  of  '  reason  '  in  the  new  age  :  anthropo- 
centric  standard  ridiculed  or  ignored  :  reaction  in  Comtism  :  Pro- 
fessor Huxley's  moral  dualism  :  refuge  in  abnegation :  Church 
indispensable  as  alone  giving  motive  and  hope. 

§  I.  The  student  of  thought  or  religion  is  again  and  again 
confronted  by  the  puzzling  symptoms  of  Mysticism.  They 
deviate  but  slightly  in  type  and  features  from  age  to  age, 
from  creed  to  creed ;  everywhere,  indeed,  they  preserve  certain 
marks  and  signs  that  never  vary.  One  universal  characteristic 
seized  on  for  especial  attack  by  critics  is  this:  the  mystic 
resigns  himself  to  the  Unknown,  sinks  his  role  of  inquirer 
or  logician  or  free  agent,  to  plunge  headlong  into  something 
which  is  not  himself,  which  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case 
"he  cannot,  or  only  very  imperfectly,  define.  In  a  sense,  this 
objection,  though  unsympathetic  to  an  extensive  phase  of 
thought  and  feeling,  is  justified :  the  description  of  the 
Universal  with  which  he  is  so  familiar  and  so  well  content 
is  incommunicable ;  his  joys  he  cannot  share  with  others,  and 
he  has  not  even  the  grace  to  seem  ashamed  at  this;  nay, 
the  further  beyond  precise  definition,  the  truer  for  him  the 
experience.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  all  the  while, 
if  he  be  a  genuine  mystic,  it  is  no  '  unknown '  at  all,  but  the 
most  real  of  things.  Nothing  else  exists  beside  it;  and  the 
test  is  not  barren  argument,  but  direct  contact  and  immediacy. 
Mysticism  reverts  to  the  earliest  and  simplest  canons  of  truth ; 
we  pass  through  intellectual  evidence  to  the  emotional  assent, 
and  through  them  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  senses.  We  detect 
what  is  real  by  proof  (often  valueless  in  action),  by  faith,  and 
by  touch  and  taste.  The  lowest  and  the  highest  things  in 
the  scale  of  being  are  judged  by  a  like  criterion.  But  the 
certainty  thus  derived,  if  intimate  and  personal,  cannot  be 
shared  or  imparted;  with  the  first  and  last  of  Gorgias' 
axioms  every  true  mystic  must  sympathise,  though  there  may 
be  a  certain  freemasonry  among  the  adepts.  The  orthodox 
and  philosophic  among  the  band  mark  out  with  admirable 
precision  the  stages  in  the  journey,  the  nightly  pilgrimage 
to  Mount  Carmel.     But  at  the  decisive  moment,  when  you 


256  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

have  followed  their  dialectic  or  their  appeal  with  conviction 
and  approval,  they  vanish  within  an  open  door,  which  at 
once  closes  upon  them.  To  the  uninitiated  such  contem- 
plative joys  are  the  most  empty  and  barren  of  all  delusions ; 
to  the  mystic  himself,  the  most  positive  of  facts.  But  there 
is  no  bridge  between  the  exceptional  experience  and  the 
unsympathetic  critic;  there  is  a  'great  gulf  fixed.'  It  will 
not  then  be  supposed  that  we  summarily  include  these  devout 
raptures  among  surrenders  to  the  unknown.  Religious 
mysticism,  however  it  may  innocently  sport  with  nihilistic 
phrase,  is  in  reality  personal,  is  directed  towards  a  Deity 
conceived  as  a  person,  finds  supreme  satisfaction  in  an  inter- 
course which,  if  it  pass  beyond  the  colloquy  of  a  friend,  only 
becomes  the  passionate  silence  of  a  lover.  There  is,  however, 
another  kind,  which  boasts  that  it  has  no  definable  object. 
Negative  in  its  interest,  and  quietist  in  aim,  its  sole  doctrine 
is  the  nothingness  of  the  subject,  the  vanity  and  inadequacy 
of  thought,  the  unique  'duty'  to  become  absorbed  in  a 
larger  life,  which  after  all  has  no  conscious  existence  apart 
from  the  sum  of  its  members  (and  how  can  the  sum  of  the 
imperfect  make  a  perfect  whole  ?).  It  may  be  urged  against 
the  purely  religious  mystic  by  the  practical  or  the  narrow, 
that  it  is  a  system  of  hedonism.  Inasmuch  as  some  amount 
of  pleasure  immediately  felt  (not  merely  indefinitely  deferred 
and  expected)  is  a  needful  ingredient  of  all  moral  assent, 
especially  to  those  involving  self-sacrifice,  this  is  no  very 
terrible  accusation.  The  impersonal  mystic  (with  whom  we 
have  chiefly  to  deal)  is  a  disciple  of  Pessimism. 

§  2.  There  is  not  the  slightest  warranty,  in  the  history  of 
mankind  or  of  thought,  for  supposing  that  we  can  ever  sum 
up  the  Universe  as  a  whole  except  by  an  effort  of  will  or  an 
effort  of  faith.  The  complexity  and  specialism  of  modern 
life  (so  well  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Merz  in  his  remarkable 
volumes  on  recent  intellectual  tendencies)  puts  out  of  court 
at  once  the  glib  and  presumptuous  unifications  which  were 
once  in  fashion.  Strictly  speaking,  there  are  no  philosophical 
systems  to-day  coherent  and  all-embracing.  Any  supposed 
representatives  of  such  claim  to  inclusion  and  finality  are 
mere  restatements  and  faded  copies  of  an  archaic  and  primitive 
type  of  thought.     The  passion  and  error  of  the  human  mind 


OF 

SURRENDER  TO  THE  UNKNOWN     257 

(as  the  English  Schools  since  Bacon  have  always  seen)  is  to 
rise  at  once  to  unity,  without  mastering  the  particulars  which 
go  to  compose  it.  No  doubt  it  is  absurd  to  try  and  curb 
by  rule  and  method  the  spontaneous  intuitions,  which  throw, 
it  may  be,  a  glimpse  of  light  on  the  way  and  give  promise  of 
a  coming  harmony.  Bacon  himself  cannot  tame  the  ventures 
of  genius ;  Science  would  fare  badly  indeed  if  it  was  not 
guided  by  dim  hints  and  vaticinations.  But,  it  must  not  be 
forgotten,  these  visions  of  an  ultimate  end,  in  which  fragments 
meet  in  a  perfect  whole  and  the  rays  blend  in  a  single  shaft 
of  light,  are  but  provisional  hypotheses.  These  the  searcher 
after  truth  must  in  turn  abandon,  with  regret  it  may  be,  but 
unsparing  candour,  if  the  facts  disprove.  Now  it  is  clear 
that  to  apply  any  summary  title  to  a  whole,  which  can  never 
be  known  in  its  totality  or  in  its  still  undetected  possibilities, 
is  either  an  impertinence  or  a  paradox,  or — an  act  of  faith, 
undertaken  on  account  of  life's  practical  needs.  Solvitur 
ambulando  is  still  a  sufficient  if  unscientific  solution.  Debate 
without  cease  seems  to-day  to  centre  round  the  problem 
whether  Truth  is,  because  we  use  it,  or  because  it  uses  us. 
We  are  not  to  be  entangled  into  such  thorny  discussion. 
The  priority  of  an  antecedent  *  world  of  logical  truth,'  which 
forestalls  our  entrance  upon  the  scene,  and  sets  in  precise 
moulds  our  methods  of  thought  and  reflection,  is  a  hypo- 
thesis necessary  to  pure  Science,  and,  it  may  very  well  be,  to 
all  clear  abstract  thinking.  But  we  are  speaking  here  of 
mixed  Science,  tarnished  and  adulterated  by  contact  with 
practical  concerns.  It  is  a  practical  need,  which  forces  and 
enables  man  to  apply  a  comprehensive  term  to  the  universe. 
Such  verdict  will  be  tinctured  with  the  special  bent  and  bias 
of  the  philosopher ;  and  in  the  end  it  is  the  human  elements 
of  personality,  of  sincerity,  which  wins  respect  for  the  system  ; 
the  unproven  and  wistful  anticipations  in  the  midst  of  arid 
certainty,  which  really  attract  and  account  for  deeper 
influence.  Granted  that  the  world  is  'knowable,'  that  is, 
merely,  that  its  sequences  can  be  concatenated  in  relation  to 
thinking  consciousness,  what  is  its  inmost  essence,  its  real 
meaning,  the  core  of  its  being?  and  can  that  which  in  its 
very  definition  includes  and  welcomes  and  confounds  all  its 
parts  into  its  central  indifference,  ever  become  a  partizan  ? 
17 


258    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

§  3.  The  earliest  incentive  to  religion  is  to  be  found  in  this 
desire  to  make  God  a  partizan.  "No  one  ever  acted,"  says 
Henry  Jones,  "without  some  dim  though  perhaps  foolish 
enough  half-belief  that  the  world  was  at  his  back  :  whether  he 
plots  good  or  evil  he  always  has  God  for  his  accomplice." 
Religious  feeling  is  not  (except  in  the  young  or  senile)  an 
awestruck  recognition  of  law  and  unity;  it  may  indeed  pass 
into  this  attitude  of  acquiescence,  this  quietistic  lethargy,  when 
men  are  tired  of  trying  to  correlate  it  to  their  needs.  But 
in  the  first  instance  it  is  a  vigorous  appeal  for  favouritism,  not 
entirely  free  from  the  contracting  spirit.  It  is  a  demand  that 
the  highest  power  known  or  suspected  shall  take  a  side,  that 
the  God  of  battles  shall  "go  forth  with  our  armies,"  or,  in  strictly 
personal  and  pacific  function,  "shall  bring  me  again  to  my 
father's  house  in  peace."  The  nature  of  the  obstacle  against 
which  our  efforts  are  directed  has  been  variously  interpreted ;  but 
whether  matter  be  dull  and  crass  or  somehow  animated,  both  in 
ourselves  and  in  the  world  around,  by  some  malignant  influence, 
the  contest  of  life  in  any  case  is  not  wholly  imaginary  and 
fictitious.  As  this  sense  of  discord  and  variance  in  our  inner 
nature,  in  society,  in  the  world  at  large,  is  the  chief  and  urgent 
element  of  experience,  so  we  track  out  the  nature  and  qualities 
of  each  of  the  hostile  groups,  try  to  ascertain  its  tendencies  and 
affinities,  and  by  compromise  unite  them  for  practical  purposes 
into  a  working  harmony.  And  here  our  powers  end;  to 
reproach  such  a  method  as  opportunist  and  unprincipled  is 
merely  to  reproach  us  with  being  human.  For  this  endeavour 
starts  from  no  desire  to  attain  logical  accuracy  in  life, — which 
is,  after  all,  easily  won  by  emptying  your  formula  of  all 
content,  making  it  (as  most  ethical  maxims  are  wont  to  become) 
merely  tautologic  A  =  A.  It  arises  not  from  the  scientific  but 
from  the  *  felicific '  impulse, — if  I  may  use  the  word  to  express 
the  desire  to^make  the  best  of  one's  self  and  of  a  world  which  in 
the  last  resort  must  always  remain  an  enigma.  Personal  religion 
grows  out  of  the  consciousness  of  self,  out  of  varied  feelings, 
despairing,  conceited,  or  commercial;  it  ends  in  its  ennoble- 
ment and  consecration.  It  is  in  this  process,  one  of  defecation, 
not  of  surrender  or  absorption,  that  man  demands  that  his  God 
shall  be  a  partizan.  It  may  be,  as  with  Jacob  at  Bethel, 
a  demand  for  personal  safety;   with  Moses  or  Paul,  in  his 


SURRENDER  TO  THE  UNKNOWN     259 

sublime  unselfishness,  a  demand  that  the  people  of  the  Lord 
shall  come  by  their  own,  even  at  the  cost  of  his  own  rejection, 
becoming  'anathema'  for  them,  innocent  for  the  guilty.  Or 
with  conscientious  persecutors  of  later  day,  faithfully  perse- 
vering in  their  terrible  and  mistaken  duty.  Or  in  modern 
times,  a  demand  for  an  *  ever-present  help  in  trouble,'  against 
impersonal  foes,  sin  and  indifference.  Our  own  liturgy  shows 
the  earlier  form,  God's  enemies  are  the  nation's  enemies  and 
the  king's;  'victory  over  all  his  enemies'  is  still  the  ideal. 
Even  when  we  have  forgiven  the  sinner,  and  only  think 
how  to  convert  him  and  loose  him  from  ignorance  and 
vice,  we  still,  even  in  our  tolerance  or  sloth,  ask  that  God 
shall  be  on  the  side  of  right,  as  we  interpret  it.  In  all  pure 
monotheistic  systems  (except  the  Christian)  there  is  a  very 
perceptible  lowering  of  the  spiritual  temperature.  The  more 
comprehensive  the  unity,  the  more  fictitious  and  ironic  the 
antitheses  which  once  appeared  so  stubborn  and  impracticable. 
The  establishment  of  such  a  system  coincides  with  a  decline  of 
zest  and  conviction  in  life.  Wherever,  through  vast  tracts  of 
time  and  land,  such  a  belief  has  existed  unshaken  and  un- 
questioned, what  the  Western  calls  '  advance  and  development ' 
is  indefinitely  arrested.  This  thought,  "  God's  in  His  heaven ; 
all's  well  with  the  world,"  may  have  two  lessons  :  '  fatal  doing ' 
is  a  mistake  and  an  impiety ;  or,  it  behoves  me  to  be  up  and 
active  in  His  cause.  Impartial  testimony  from  history  will 
show  that  the  Christian  Gospel  cannot  sink  into  torpor  or  com- 
placence, because  its  basis  is,  and  must  remain,  largely  dualistic, 
because  in  it  we  are  taught  to  learn  the  nature  of  deity  by 
studying  a  human  life.  "  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the 
Father  .  .  .  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work." 

§  4.  Christianity  is  then  humanistic^  that  is,  does  not  com- 
promise as  other  monotheistic  belief  must  perforce  do,  with 
the  rigour  of  physical  law,  with  nature's  indifference  to  happi- 
ness or  desert,  or  to  the  aims  and  hopes  of  mankind.  It  fixes 
our  attention  upon  the  value  of  a  simple  life,  attainable  by 
every  one,  without  respect  to  rank,  knowledge,  or  opportunity. 
It  resolutely  asserts,  against  almost  unvar3nng  evidence,  a  moral 
end  in  the  universe;  not  a  vague  current  setting  towards  an 
indefinable  righteousness,  but  a  personal  guidance,  judgment, 
recompense  of  individuals, — a  moral  aim  related  to  all,  and,  in 


26o    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

spite  of  obvious  problems,  broadly  intelligible  to  all.  It  will 
not  allow  this  antithesis,  at  least  of  natural  and  spiritual,  to  be 
transcended,  or  the  distinction  of  right  and  wrong  to  be  blurred, 
as  with  Assassins  and  perhaps  with  Templars,  in  an  esoteric 
cult  of  indifference  or  a  region  *  Beyond  Good  and  Bad.'  This 
refusal  is  sturdy  and  sincere,  and  accounts  both  for  the  un- 
doubted force  which  the  Gospel  has  exerted  over  development, 
and  for  those  brief  but  violent  periods  of  antipathy  to  the 
world,  when,  against  some  comforting  preaching  of  Unity,  or 
salvation  already  achieved,  the  seductive  influence  of  some 
secular  culture,  the  enervating  effect  of  new  comfort  and  multi- 
plied appliance,  the  Church  feels  bound  to  raise  the  standard 
of  effort  and  of  opposition.  "  Ye  worship  ye  know  not  what ; 
we  know  what  we  worship."  All  narrower  antithesis  of  self  and 
others,  of  nation  and  Christendom,  of  Christian  thought  and 
earnest  pagan  philosophy,  may  be  put  aside  or  surmounted. 
But  the  widest  scope  of  view  from  the  watch-tower  of  wisdom 
(wcnrep  €k  irepttoTr^s)  cannot  justify  US  in  viewing  life  or  the 
universe  as  an  achieved  harmony.  Happily  for  the  zest  of  human 
endeavour,  the  struggle  is  still  raging,  the  triumph  is  not  yet 
won.  This  assurance  does  not  entail  condemnation  of  those 
who  seem  already  to  have  put  off  their  armour  and  entered 
into  rest.  The  twofold  need  in  God,  as  a  '  place  of  peace,'  a 
bond  of  unity,  and  as  a  helper  in  the  fight, — this  we  have 
often  noticed.  There  is  a  serious  significance  in  that  fanciful 
interpretation  of  Trinitarian  dogma  which  appealed  to  Abbot 
Joachim  and  to  Hegel  and  Schelling.  The  present  age  of 
effort  and  striving  and  failure  is  the  Kingdom  of  the  Son; 
and  the  perfect  peace  or  Kingdom  of  the  Spirit  is  to  be  attained 
only  by  suffering  and  trial.  There  is  a  point,  as  we  all  know, 
where  resignation  to  the  Divine  Will  becomes  a  snare.  Has  not 
some  modern  writer,  thinking  perhaps  of  the  story  of  Jacob, 
spoken  of  the  worthiest  attitude  to  God — '  Behave  to  Him  as 
to  a  generous  foe '  ? 

§  5.  Having  shown  the  limits  to  which  Christianity  can  go  in 
the  process  of  conciliation,  of  '  crossing  out '  antithesis,  let  us 
see  whether  the  course  of  independent  human  thought  can 
provide  any  lessons  from  its  sedulous  pursuit  of  Unity.  First, 
a  single  material  element  was  held  by  the  lonians  to  account 
for  the  variety  of  things,  and  Heraclitus  in   the  East  and 


SURRENDER  TO  THE  UNKNOWN     261 

Xenophanes  in  the  West  were  the  earliest  to  introduce,  in  place 
of  mechanism,  a  certain  notion  of  purpose,  of  continuity  not 
merely  of  sequence  but  of  aim,  even  of  conscious  blessedness. 
The  universe,  which  was  once  too  far  above  to  interfere  with 
the  lesser  spheres  of  the  gods,  gradually  takes  on  their  semi- 
human  attributes.  In  the  Attic  or  classical  age,  this  concep- 
tion was  still  more  firmly  established ;  instead  of  a  never-ceasing 
process,  infinite  in  time  and  space  (where  the  primitive  sub- 
stance was  never  out  of  masquerade),  or  an  unchanging  organism, 
circular  limited ;  one  system,  the  Platonic,  was  pervaded  by  a 
moral  purpose ;  another,  magnetically  attracted  by  a  stable  and 
permanent,  though  inaccessible,  point  of  conscious  intelligence. 
This  somewhat  naive  confidence  that  the  universe  would 
answer  to  men's  moral  hopes,  as  it  certainly  yielded  to  their 
interpretation,  was  followed  by  that  long  and  perhaps  inglorious 
reaction  in  which  the  anthropocentric  standpoint  was  in  effect 
abandoned  by  all  Schools.  The  Stoic  was  the  first  to  worship 
the  unknown ;  for  it  surpassed  his  cleverness  to  attempt  to  bring 
into  line  natural,  social,  and  moral  forces.  Stoicism,  where  it 
is  not  used  in  the  superficial  sense  of  unrepining  and  patient 
forbearance,  implies  agnosticism  and  nothing  more.  As  we 
know,  where  it  failed  to  provide  satisfaction  for  personal  needs, 
the  more  mystical  side  of  Plato  was  put  under  contribution ; 
and  the  alliance  of  Porch  and  Academy  was  complete  before 
the  classical  age  of  the  New  Platonists.  Here,  again,  the 
almost  personal  sense  of  intimate  communion  relieved  their 
doctrine  from  absurdity,  their  venture  of  faith  from  sheer 
foolhardiness.  It  might  indeed  be  impossible  to  explain  to 
others  what  was  this  secret  commerce  between  particular  and 
universal  soul ;  but  to  Seneca  and  to  Aurelius,  as  to  any  other 
pious  devotee  in  East  or  West,  it  was  a  fact  of  incontrovertible 
experience,  the  most  real  thing  in  life.  In  the  larger  world 
outside  the  Schools,  in  the  rekindled  interest  in  various  cults, 
society  sought  alleviation  of  its  ennui,  and  some  lightening  of 
the  perhaps  oppressive  sense  of  uniform  law,  human  and 
Divine.  Then  came  Christianity,  with  its  ready  and  simple 
message,  its  profound  yet  not  obtrusive  metaphysics,  and 
expelled  the  awe  felt  at  the  powerful  and  the  strong,  or  the 
respect  paid  to  unintelligibility  simply  on  that  ground  and 
under  that   title.     It   cannot   be  doubted   that  the   Gnostic 


262    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

systems  largely  encouraged  this  humiliating  worship;  and, 
starting  in  a  praiseworthy  desire  to  co-ordinate  the  '  credenda,' 
to  apply  pagan  criteria  to  Christian  belief,  to  "  be  ready  always 
to  give  an  answer,"  this  movement  of  intellectual  curiosity  fell 
into  '  old  wives'  fables '  and  irrationalism.  The  Catholic  Church 
strove  against  this  reproach  jby  submitting  to  the  ordinary 
moral  judgment  of  the  individual,  or  to  continuous  corporate 
tradition  (guided,  but  never  overpowered,  by  inspiration),  all 
necessary  articles  of  Faith.  It  never  flinched  from  open  dis- 
cussion ;  in  the  Conciliar  or  in  the  Mediaeval  period  it  deferred 
to  the  definition  of  Greek  philosophy,  or  the  more  rigid  formula 
of  Roman  law.  In  its  Christology  it  preserved,  against  the 
menace  of  absorption,  the  independence  of  the  human  side ;  it 
rejected  the  *  transient  and  miraculous  theophany '  of  Cerinthus, 
and  the  purely  magical  doctrine  of  Grace.  But  it  is  true  that, 
to  some  extent,  the  dominating  influence  in  the  Church  of  the 
Middle  Ages  is  to  be  found  in  Augustine's  doctrine,  whether 
of  Church-supremacy,  or  the  Divine  counsel  and  foreknowledge. 
And  the  African  Church  was  from  the  first  a  determined  apostle 
of  Absolutism,  which  disdained  any  reckoning  with  ordinary 
standards. 

§  6.  To  Tertullian — at  least  in  one  peculiar  and  (some  may 
suppose)  artificial  attitude,  which  he  assumed  and  intensified 
in  the  fire  of  debate — the  Christian  message  is  to  be  accepted, 
not  because  it  answers  so  fitly  the  unspoken  aspirations,  the 
inarticulate  needs  of  the  heart,  but  because  it  runs  counter 
to  all  intellectual  logic,  all  ordinary  experience.  Like  a  flash 
of  lightning  out  of  a  clear  sky  came  the  Divine  marvel ;  came 
the  summons  to  an  unconditional  capitulation.  Rebuking 
the  liberal  Alexandrinism,  which  looked  for  patient  develop- 
ment even  in  the  Divine  purpose,  for  partial  revelation  even  in 
dark  and  pagan  times ;  which  groped  diligently  for  any  trace  of 
likeness  and  for  points  of  affinity  from  the  common  ground  for 
learner  and  for  preacher ;  Tertullian  rejected  such  compromise 
as  unworthy  the  unique  majesty  of  a  sudden  and  unprepared 
Theophany.  It  is  not  a  little  significant  that  about  the  same 
time,  and  from  the  same  country,  issued  into  the  field  of  world- 
politics  Septimius  Severus,  a  similar  figure  with  a  similar 
mission,  who  tore  from  force  a  thin  disguise  of  legality,  and 
became  the  first  military  autocrat  in  Rome.     Then  Cyprian 


SURRENDER  TO  THE  UNKNOWN     263 

transfers  this  belief  in  irresponsible  sovereignty  into  the  sphere 
of  Church  government;  Lactantius  into  the  moral  life;  for, 
in  itself  arbitrary  and  indifferent,  the  demand  of  virtue  and 
piety  are  only  of  value  because  God  has  so  ordained ;  the  test 
of  quia  Dens  prcecepit^  common  to  the  African  School  and  Duns 
Scotus,  the  anti-Thomist.  Augustine  sums  up  all  doctrine, 
morals,  and  principles  of  statesmanship  for  the  Western  world 
in  the  next  millennium ;  and  in  his  finished  theory  the  moral 
aspects  of  the  Gospel  well  nigh  disappear  behind  the  arbitrary. 
The  whole  Scholastic  movement  is  a  serious  and  perhaps  an 
ineffectual  protest  against  this  surrender  to  the  unknown.  But 
they  fought  for  the  intelligence^  not  for  the  moral  sense ;  and 
in  satisfying  this  universal  Reason  by  logic  and  formula,  they 
did  not  reach  the  heart.  Now  it  is  not  a  little  strange  that 
unlimited  power  as  a  chief  attribute  of  Deity,  that  distrust  of 
intellect,  that  (within  a  narrow  society)  hierarchic  tyranny, 
should  have  marked  the  issue  of  a  reformation  which  avowedly 
began  in  sympathy  for  the  unit  and  its  claim  for  freedom  of 
conscience  and  direct  access  to  God.  Yet  the  Reformation 
undoubtedly  ended  by  reviving  Augustinianism,  with  all  its 
unreconciled  dualism,  its  intolerance,  its  absolutism, — against 
which  the  practice  and  (to  a  large  extent)  the  theory  of  the 
Mediaeval  Church  had  reacted.  We  have  already  traced  the 
retirement  of  the  religious  element  to  its  own  peculiar  and 
private  fastness  in  the  following  years ;  the  increasingly  secular 
and  un-moral  character  of  the  State.  Philosophy  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  like  statesman  and  citizen,  surrendered  gladly 
to  autocracy.  The  God  of  the  thinker  is  Law  and  fiat  absolute, 
to  whom  time  and  purpose  and  aim  cannot  be  allowed.  The 
system  or  fabric  is  discoverable  in  its  laws  and  sequence  by 
thought,  but  not  amenable  to  a  moral  verdict  or  criterion. 
Already  the  world  of  artistic  unity,  of  speculative  contemplation, 
has  unfolded  itself  beyond  the  visible,  where  there  is  'no 
variableness,  no  shadow  of  turning.'  In  that  age,  though  pious 
faith  (until  disillusioned)  believed  in  a  benevolent  design  in- 
cluding units.  State  and  Church  were  dominated  by  a  notion 
of  arbitrary  and  irresistible  power.  Indeed,  this  was  only  toler- 
able because  its  intervention  was  not  perpetual,  its  presence 
not  always  felt.  The  State  was  paramount,  but  its  actual  en- 
croachments were  limited ;  the  Divine  fiat  of  doom  or  salvation 


264    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

was  irresistible ;  but  it  left  much  to  the  pleasing  or  agonised 
uncertainty  of  the  individual  in  the  long  interval  of  suspense. 

§  7.  We  need  not  again  traverse  the  ground  already  covered 
in  dealing  with  the  eighteenth  century;  the  novel  claims  of 
the  individual  for  consideration  and  respect,  the  Constitu- 
tionalism, attained  in  England  and  demanded  elsewhere  by  the 
educated,  the  utilitarianism  in  theology,  which  suggested  that 
the  'greater  glory  of  God'  was  best  won  by  consulting  the 
happiness  of  the  several  units  that  made  up  His  kingdom.  A 
government,  a  State,  an  institution  like  the  Sabbath,  did  not 
exist  for  its  own  sake ;  just  as  the  end  of  law  is  not  its  own 
empty  fulfilment,  but  the  welfare  of  those  for  whose  benefit  it 
has  been  set  up.  The  entire  aim  of  this  epoch  of  eager  and 
sanguine  reform  was  to  eliminate  the  unknown ;  to  show  the 
facility  of  prudent  virtue,  the  simplicity  of  the  Divine  purpose, 
the  open  candour  with  which  the  secrets  of  nature  were  laid 
bare  to  patient  and  unprejudiced  search.  There  was  no  place 
for  *  mystery '  in  such  an  age ;  the  mystic  and  the  *  enthusiast ' 
were  together  banished  from  the  coming  realm  of  pure  reason. 
In  the  nineteenth  century,  when  romantic  thought  reverted 
wistfully  to  the  charm  of  half-lights,  Gothic  cathedrals,  feudal 
chivalry,  vague  artistic  delineation,  blurred  and  suggestive  out- 
lines, hints  and  intimations  of  the  spiritual ;  when  philosophers, 
tired  of  the  banal  transparency  of  rational  truisms  which  facts 
refuted,  went  back  to  the  *  little  sensations '  of  Leibnitz,,  the 
unconscious  background  of  thought ;  Religion  regained  much 
of  the  shadow  and  reserve  which  men  had  tried  to  dispel. 
There  was  a  great  revival  of  dogma,  which  in  the  Christian 
system  has  always  retained,  and  always  must  retain,  a  certain 
element  of  paradox,  of  paralogism — the  finite  taking  on  infini- 
tude. Clearness  became  a  demerit  in  the  eyes  of  the  new 
School  of  Obscurantists;  the  test  of  value  became  to  many 
incomprehensibility ;  the  obvious  was  despised  or  handed  over 
to  the  dull  routine  of  the  State.  Enigmatic  utterance,  *  Hymns 
to  the  Night,'  and  mystical  sighs  and  aspirations,  took  the  place 
of  straightforward  teaching  and  simple  lessons  of  honesty  and 
truth.  Despairing  of  reason,  men  accepted  the  guidance  of 
feeling.  In  spite  of  the  apparent  deference  to  calm  logic  and 
calculated  rule,  it  may  be  questioned  if  any  age  has  been  less 
influenced  and  moulded  by  conscious  plan,  by  statesmanship 


SURRENDER  TO  THE  UNKNOWN     265 

of  decided  aim.  Great  movements  have  swept  along  their 
supposed  agents  and  engineers  towards  goals  which  they  never 
dreamt  of,  to  conclusions  they  never  suspected.  The  common 
and  well-founded  taunt  of  opportunism  implies  not  a  lack  of 
moral  principles  in  individuals,  but  a  puzzled  ignorance  as  to 
their  right  application  in  a  world  so  changed.  Many  are 
content  to  resign  themselves  to  the  current  and  drift  with  the 
stream.  And  in  the  Social  world,  which  is  largely  usurping  the 
place  once  occupied  by  pure  politics,  no  one  would  venture  to 
decide  where  the  future  lies,  with  State-sovereignty  or  with 
individual  liberty,  with  automatism,  beneficent  but  not  spon- 
taneous, or  with  a  noble  but  perilous  autonomy. 

§  8.  Elsewhere  we  have  tried  to  show  the  remarkable  *  down- 
grade '  tendency  to  empty  the  Source  of  Being  of  any  quality 
that  seems  akin  to  ourselves,  that  might  confirm  the  truth  of 
Kant's  pregnant  suggestion — the  unknown  element  in  things 
may  perchance  turn  out  to  be  very  near  to  our  own  mind. 
Deism,  with  its  narrow  but  humanistic  moralism,  was  completely 
out  of  fashion.  Nature-worship,  with  its  truths  and  its  fallacies, 
took  hold  of  men's  imagination ;  and  suited  exactly  the  temper 
of  an  age  romantic  just  because  it  was  prosaic.  Poets  sang 
of  the  mysterious  and  indefinable  emotion,  which  seized  on  the 
soul  like  some  panic  or  bacchic  rapture.  When  Reason  was 
mentioned  as  the  root  or  key  of  being,  it  was  not  the  limited 
calculation  of  the  logician,  but  the  whole  impetus  and  onrush 
of  unconscious  forces.  All  schools,  whether  optimist  or  pessi- 
mist in  tone,  ignored  or  derided  the  anthropocentric  standard. 
Unable  to  penetrate  the  secret  of  the  origin  and  meaning 
of  the  world-process,  the  French  School  proposed  to  lay  an 
embargo  on  metaphysical  dreams  or  idle  search,  and  find  in 
*  Humanity'  a  substitute  for  an  extinct  Deity:  the  English, 
seeing  even  here  something  beyond  verification  and  sensible 
experience,  recommended  a  return  to  the  national  State,  to  a 
visible  community,  to  ordinary  moral  duties  of  the  old-fashioned 
type,  closely  modelled  on  Puritan  forms,  among  which  they  had 
been  brought  up.  And  in  some  few,  the  sense  of  baffled  intel- 
ligence striving  in  vain  to  understand,  drove  to  the  utmost 
length  of  renunciation  or  defiance.  Such  are  some  of  the  re- 
actions which  the  doctrine  of  the  unknown  and  unknowable 
provoked.     A  large  proportion  of  thinkers  despair  of  finding 


266    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

any  counterpart  to  human  needs  and  demands  without.  Some 
conceal  their  disappointment  by  a  revival  of  Stoic  abnegation 
or  Buddhist  calm,  by  calling  men  to  defer  ungrudgingly  to  a 
race-purpose  which  they  cannot  decipher,  and  in  which  they 
cannot  participate.  Yet  never  was  age  so  carefully  primed  and 
prepared  against  the  insidious  charming  of  these  preachers  of 
self-sacrifice.  The  individual  to-day  has  learnt  both  his  worth 
and  his  power.  If  the  State,  if  the  Divine  purpose  cannot 
justify  itself  to  him,  to  his  sense  of  value  and  righteousness  of 
aim,  he  will  have  none  of  it;  he  will  turn  to  'cultivate  his 
garden,'  an  obvious  duty  not  without  its  own  simple  delight 
and  immediate  recompense.  Although  (as  we  see  clearly)  the 
human  mind  is  eager  to  discover  a  cause  worth  the  serving,  the 
modern  half-hearted  appeals,  duty  for  duty's  sake,  surrender  of 
present  gain  for  a  remote  and  problematic  posterity,  are  listened 
to  with  chilling  silence.  Christianity  provides  us  with  an  ideal 
object  for  our  efforts,  with  a  Sovereign  who  can  recognise  merit 
and  guarantee  future  triumph,  with  a  sense  of  personal  value, 
with  the  assurance  of  the  worth  of  endeavour;  and  in  this 
leaching,  not  merely  appropriate  to  the  present  day  but  indis- 
pensable, the  Church  occupies  a  unique  position  :  it  is  the  sole 
hope  of  Western  society. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  IV— A 
The  Three  Stages  of  Modern  Apologetic 


CrEDIBILITyI     ^^„„^,„^„^,„^    ^^   ^„^     fPURE   REASON 
■c, I     CORRESPONDING   TO   THE     U;,       ^      c^ 

I'Z.  j      THKK.   PH..OSOPH.ES      j^--^^^- 


§  I.  Different  standpoint  of  man  of  action  and  reflection  :  the 
one  careless  of  the  absoluteness  of  a  working  hypothesis  :  conflict  of 
Science  and  '  democracy  '  in  one  of  its  phases  :  rejection  of  a  '  single 
law  '  in  modern  French  thought :  English  doubt  of  the  claims  of 
'  architectonic  '  science. 

§  2.  Successive  isolations  of  the  Religious  problem  :  the  ages  of 
reason,  of  facts,  of  values, — corresponding  to  the  years  1700- 1900  ; 
early  inquiry  into  Christian  dogma  by  Rationalism  :  second  inquiry 
of  Science, — the  nineteenth  century  '  historic  '  ;  this  age  not  prolific 
in  new  principles  ;  but  in  revivals  :  its  title  to  distinction,  its  in- 
dustry :  its  interest,  the  conflict  of  ideas. 

§  3.  Keen  and  critical  inquiry  into  the  Gospel  story  :  attempt  to 
study  without  prejudice  :  general  belief  that  its  morality  might  survive 
its  supernatural  basis  :  at  length  realised  that  Nature  taught  an 
opposite  lesson  to  Christian  altruism  :  much  pains  to  reconcile  : 
flnal  settlement  into  Gnosticism  ;  or  the  theory  of  combating  the  Cosmic 
Process  :  absence  of  any  clear  principle. 

§  4.  u4  humanistic  reaction  sets  in ;  values  :  rejection  of  the 
standards  of  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  :  a  division  of  ter- 
ritory proposed  :  modesty  of  our  aim  to-day,  to  understand  and 
provide  for  average  man  :  silence  of  contemporary  thought  on  all 
ultimate  problems  ;  no  reason  for  rejecting  the  light  we  have. 

§  I.  The  traveller  in  search  of  Religious  truth  may  follow 
three  paths  at  discretion :  he  may  point  to  the  probability  or 
reasonableness  a  priori  of  the  doctrine ;  he  may  carefully 
ascertain  the  accuracy  of  the  method  of  revelation  (if  indeed 
the  religion  has  any  historical  kernel);  or  he  may  point  to 
the  value  of  the  beliefs  in  their  wholesome  influence  on  life 

267 


268    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

and  happiness,  to  the  social  uses  of  the  Church  which  is  their 
custodian.  Now  the  undying  feud  between  the  philosophic 
and  the  popular  attitude  to  things,  is  due  to  their  different 
criterion.  There  is  no  sign  at  present  that  this  stubborn 
incompatibility  can  be  reconciled.  The  average  man  is  not 
in  the  least  interested  in  the  pursuit  of  truth,  that  is  of 
logical  consistency.  If  he  can  be  provided  with  a  working 
hypothesis,  a  general  rule  of  conduct,  a  scientific  presumption, 
somehow  applicable  to  things,  he  has  neither  leisure  nor 
inclination  to  concern  himself  with  the  absoluteness  of  the 
hypothesis  which  he  finds  so  useful,  with  'eternal  and  im- 
mutable morality,'  or  with  the  essential  relation  of  thought 
and  things.  This  (it  will  be  said)  is  but  to  paraphrase  the 
commonplace  that  the  busy  man's  standpoint  \s  practical^  the 
philosopher's  speculative.  But  some  commonplaces  are  pro- 
found; and  some  truisms  are  so  often  repeated  that  their 
meaning  and  implications  are  apt  to  be  forgotten.  The 
modern  conflict  of  physical  Science  or  abstract  philosophy 
with  the  aims  and  ideals  of  'democracy,'  should  convince  a 
careful  student  of  this  complex  age  that  the  antithesis  is  of 
very  real  import  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  future 
of  Western  Europe  (it  would  be  arrogant  to  say  of  mankind) 
must  depend  on  the  settlement  or  compromise  which  may 
be  arrived  at  between  the  two.  The  Christian  and  '  democratic ' 
axiom,  'every  man  an  end  in  himself,'  admits  of  no  dispute 
whatever  in  the  opinion  of  the  religious  believer  or  the  genuine 
lover  of  his  kind.  It  is  a  doctrine  in  which  science  and 
philosophy  cannot  acquiesce,  not  because  their  point  of  view 
is  false,  but  because  it  is  partial.  We  have  ere  this  maintained 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  '  architectonic '  science.  We 
listen  with  attention  to  the  loud  disclaimer  of  the  supposed 
identity  of  natural  and  social  phenomena,  which  of  late  years 
has  reached  us  from  France  (once  the  very  home  and  cradle  of 
monistic  theory  and  logical  coherence),  from  Rauh,  L^vy- 
Bruhl,  Jankelevitch,  fellow-countrymen  of  the  great  champions 
of  a  single  mastering  law,  Rousseau,  Napoleon,  Comte.  We 
in  England  have  not  indeed  become  once  more  conscious 
of  this  dualism,  because  we  have  never  forgotten  it.  In  the 
eyes  of  the  strict  it  has  always  been  the  reproach  of  English 
thinkers  that  they  have  never  accepted  the  undivided  sover- 


CREDIBILITY,  FACT,  AND  VALUE     269 

eignty  of  pure  thought.  The  philosopher  in  these  islands 
has  always  been  many  things  beside ;  the  most  materialist,  a 
devout  Christian;  the  most  sceptical,  a  sound  man  of 
business;  the  most  convinced  of  the  vanity  of  things,  an 
eager,  practical  worker  for  the  good  of  his  age.  It  is  the 
merit  of  the  *  Constitutional '  temper,  which  implies  not,  as  is 
so  idly  supposed,  an  insurgence  of  the  people  against  mon- 
archical whim,  but  (let  it  be  seriously  remembered  at  the 
present  time)  a  generous  deference  to  the  weaker  side,  a 
dislike  of  all  dictatorship  and  State-encroachment,  a  spirit  of 
compromise,  which  puts  up  with  what  is  second-best  in  theory, 
if  only  a  modified  perfection  will  win  a  more  general  accept- 
ance. It  is  surely  no  small  achievement  to  brave  with  good- 
humour  this  taunt  of  illogicality ;  at  given  moments  to  isolate 
the  matter  under  discussion,  to  define  precisely  the  sphere  of 
debate,  so  that  we  successfully  avoid  the  temptation  of  reducing 
all  to  an  abstract  unity,  to  a  *  night  in  which  all  cows  are 
black.'  But  if  it  is  insisted  that  an  architectonic  science,  or 
at  least  rule,  must  be  found,  we  must  unhesitatingly  claim 
that  place  for  Religion,  which,  in  the  sense  employed  in  these 
essays,  is  always  practical  and  not  speculative. 

§  2.  In  each  of  the  two  last  centuries,  thought  centring 
attention  on  the  religious  problem  has  been  dominated  by  an 
exclusive  idea.  To  the  age  of  reason  succeeds  the  age  of 
fact ;  and  to  this,  again,  the  age  of  values.  Each  of  our  pre- 
decessors has  made  an  honest  attempt  at  covering  the  whole 
ground  of  experience  with  a  single  formula.  Individual  search 
was  at  first  directed  upon  the  theory  of  revelation;  only 
imperfectly  self-conscious  and  without  humane  sympathies, 
these  critics  rejected  the  belief  in  any  Divine  unfolding,  save 
that  contained  in  the  all-sufficient  volume  of  Nature.  A 
closer  inquiry  into  this  Divine  and  benevolent  mechanism 
would  disclose  all  secrets  needful  for  man's  well-being.  The 
very  fundamental  conception  of  Christianity,  the  union  of  the 
finite  with  infinitude,  put  its  whole  dogmatic  basis  at  once  out 
of  court.  Instead  was  left  a  human  prophet  of  pure  moral 
teaching  and  blameless  life.  Starting  from  prepossessions  a 
priori,  wery  natural  to  their  habit  of  thought  and  impartial 
criticism,  they  rejected  the  credibility  of  the  story;  because 
God,  as  they  conceived  Him,  could  never  have  acted  in  that 


270  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

way.  With  the  failure  of  Rationalism,  identifying  itself  with 
a  Nature  it  had  never  investigated,  a  new  method  was  adopted. 
Theories  and  logic  and  vision  were  given  up  to  the  Idealist 
and  Romantic  Schools  of  discontented  poets  and  philosophers  ; 
practical  duties  were  entrusted  to  the  State,  with  its  largely 
increased  powers;  and  the  universal  aim  in  all  branches  of 
knowledge  was  to  ascertain  wkat  really  happened.  The 
nineteenth  century  is  above  all  the  'historic'  age, — the  age 
of  unbiassed  inquiry  into  origins  and  stages  of  development. 
All  scientific  study  must  start  free  from  prejudice,  though  it 
may  be  animated  and  stimulated  by  every  kind  of  vague 
hypothesis.  It  must  rigidly  divest  itself  of  any  kind  of  moral 
prepossessions;  and  how  difficult  this  is  no  reader  of  the 
great  authors  of  Science  is  unaware ;  it  seems  impossible  for 
them  to  forget  in  the  sense  of  the  import  of  their  mission 
that  we  do  not  go  to  exact  inquiry  for  commonplaces  of 
moral  exhortation,  and  that  a  lay-reader  and  his  tone  of 
thought  is  entirely  out  of  place  in  a  laboratory.  "  Render  unto 
Caesar " ;  and  this  is  no  despairing  surrender,  but  a  necessary 
limitation  of  province  and  propriety.  This  simple  registry 
of  fact  is  the  great  achievement  of  the  age  that  is  past;  its 
industry  is  the  best  title  to  remembrance,  its  exactitude. 
The  nineteenth  century  may  well  be  challenged  to  have 
produced  a  single  new  principle,  a  single  fresh  idea:  its 
novelty  and  interest  lie  in  this, — that  it  displays  all  principles, 
all  ideas  in  conflict.  It  brought  forth  an  abundant  crop  of 
revivals  of  antique  or  forgotten  doctrines ;  because  a  purely 
negative  survey  of  things  as  they  have  happened,  or  will  again 
happen,  can  be  reconciled  to  any  and  every  hypothesis  as  to 
the  source  and  meaning  of  the  whole.  When  Mr.  Darwin 
was  asked  whether  he  considered  his  discoveries  told  in  favour 
of  Christianity  or  against  it,  he  answered  without  hesitation, 
"  In  favour."  Although  far  more  exact  proof  of  the  unbroken 
chain  of  circumstance  is  now  forthcoming,  it  cannot  be  said 
that  the  sense  of  fatal  necessity  is  really  more  acute  and 
oppressive  than  in  the  sixteenth  century ;  when  Kepler,  mark- 
ing at  one  moment  the  leap  from  mediaeval  to  modern  thought, 
removed  the  animce  motrices  in  his  second  edition  and 
substituted  natural  forces.  In  the  tracing  of  sequence  and 
series,  in   the  prediction   of  coming   events,   in  the   control 


CREDIBILITY,  FACT,  AND  VALUE     271 

(customary  but  always  precarious)  of  physical  phenomena, 
the  past  epoch  has  made  unrivalled  progress.  But  it  has 
made  no  innovation  in  qualifying  the  Universe  into  whose 
secrets  it  has  so  closely  penetrated.  With  all  its  knowledge  it 
prefers  to  confess  its  ignorance.  Except  in  a  narrow  and  pietistic 
clique,  the  voice  of  optimism  is  silent ;  and  in  spite  of  some 
superficial  disclaimers  of  pessimism,  the  most  prevalent  theory 
of  the  Universe  as  a  whole  is  borrowed  from  the  gnostic 
dreamers  of  the  second  century. 

§  3.  The  attitude  of  such  an  age  to  the  Gospel  was  one  of 
keen  interest  and  criticism.  Recognising  the  importance  of 
Christian  phenomena  in  world-history,  in  social  and  political 
development,  writers  of  all  Schools  divested  themselves  of  all 
prejudice  and  metaphysic.  It  was  not  their  concern  to  rave 
against  priestcraft  or  fumble  with  forgotten  controversy. 
Dispassionate  calm,  and  even  wistful  sympathy,  mark  their 
writings;  the  Gospel-record  took  its  place  with  everything 
human  or  natural, — a  development  having  ascertainable  cause, 
motive,  laws,  utility ;  following  a  course  easy  to  be  traced,  and 
doomed  like  all  else  to  find  an  end  when  its  vitality  was 
exhausted.  In  this  research  into  religious  origins,  there  was 
nothing  necessarily  hostile,  except  perhaps  the  implicit  assump- 
tion that  Christianity  was  a  pure  and  natural  phenomenon. 
Some  ventured  to  attack  certain  doctrinal  outposts,  without 
carrying  the  site  of  the  main  citadel;  others  refrained  from 
any  comment,  though  the  result  of  their  work  was  subversive 
of  belief;  others,  again,  regretted  the  painful  necessity  of 
plain  speaking,  and  comforted  their  hearers  with  the  thought 
that  the  beneficial  effects  and  pure  morality  of  the  Gospel 
would  survive  the  overthrow  of  its  dogma.  For  nothing  was 
more  typical  of  the  last  century  than  the  vagueness  and 
instability  of  its  moral  sanction.  It  was  imagined  that,  apart 
from  any  'doctrine  of  man  and  his  nature,  of  the  universe 
and  its  meaning,'  the  *  beauty  of  holiness,'  in  a  very  restricted 
and  Christian  (not  to  say  Puritan)  sense,  was  obvious  and 
irresistible.  The  clearest  thinkers,  blind  in  this  respect  to 
the  real  tendency  and  average  temper  of  their  age,  preached 
the  separation,  indeed  the  enfranchisement,  of  altruistic  ethics 
from  the  only  doctrine  which  gave  it  cogency  or  attractiveness. 
At  that  stage  they  neither  knew  nor  cared  whether  further 


272    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

investigation  into  the  root-principle  of  life  or  the  stages  of 
its  evolution  gave  any  warranty  for  this  curious  self-surrender. 
As  deepening  knowledge  laid  bare  the  wide  rift  between  the 
lessons  of  natural  selection  and  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel, 
men  were  at  much  pains  to  conceal,  to  deny,  or  to  explain  it. 
Many  volumes  were  written  on  the  relations  of  Science  and 
Religion;  and  whatever  was  the  standpoint  of  the  authors, 
secular  or  orthodox,  the  final  result  was  the  same, — we  must 
leave  to  Nature  her  fatalism  and  her  cruelty,  and  see  in  God 
only  ineffable  love,  and  in  supreme  abnegation  man's  highest 
duty.  Even  where  the  second  axiom  was  rejected  (as  in  the 
British  School  of  Science),  the  cogency  of  the  third  was  never 
seriously  called  in  question.  A  demur  might  be  raised  that 
except  in  the  brief  and  instinctive  sacrifice  of  maternal  love, 
man  could  seek  in  vain  for  any  counterpart  or  encouragement 
in  Nature  to  their  very  exacting  code;  and  at  last  a  final 
rupture  took  place  with  the  inexorable  physical  system.  Man's 
sole  virtue  and  sole  hope  lay  in  ceaseless  combat  of  the  cosmic 
process ;  the  antithesis,  which  even  lurked  in  the  complacent 
monism  of  the  Stoics,  between  *wy'  nature  and  ^  universal 
nature,  was  recognised  as  the  base  and  incentive  of  all  human 
endeavour,  the  ground  of  all  human  society.  This  antithesis 
is  the  esoteric  belief  which  actually  governs  Western  conduct. 
Yet  the  stream  of  apologies  and  reconciliations  has  not 
ceased.  Some  explain  away  the  reality  of  animal  pain ; 
others  would  console  individual  misery  and  failure  by  the 
unsatisfactory  and  indistinct  theory  of  an  example  set  to 
posterity;  others  deny,  or  give  an  unfamiliar  interpretation 
to  immortality.  And  while  the  life-impulse  prevents  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  race  (at  least  among  our  simpler  classes),  while 
nations  are  recruited  by  the  natural  working  of  a  passion 
which  has  never  recognised  Reason  as  its  master, — the  best 
die  out  and  leave  no  heirs.  In  the  acknowledged  vanity  of 
things  (apart  from  the  Christian  hypothesis)  none  can  supply 
anything  approaching  a  clear  and  logical  justification  of  their 
hopes,  their  principle  of  action,  their  clinging  to  life;  or  of 
the  widespread  yet  quite  unreflected  *  goodness,'  kindness 
and  sympathy,  which  we  meet  with  at  every  turn  in  dealing 
with  average  and  unsophisticated  mankind. 

§  4.  Whilst  only  a  few,  soon  silenced  or  confined  as  mad- 


CREDIBILITY,  FACT,  AND  VALUE     273 

men,  follow  to  its  logical  conclusions  the  lesson  of  natural 
facts,  the  remainder  are  (as  we  must,  I  fear,  again  remind  them) 
but  pensioners  of  a  system  which  they  have  done  their  best 
to  undermine.  It  is  not  to  the  inconsistency  of  this  attitude 
we  would  call  especial  attention  ;  the  only  enemies  to  the 
advance  of  thought  and  the  profit  of  men  are  the  claimants 
to  absolute  truth,  the  proposers  of  systems  complete  and 
symmetrical.  It  is  to  the  new  standard  which  they  employ, 
a  criterion  which  they  will  only  avow  with  reluctance — the 
standard  of  values.  We  must  again  utterly  repudiate  the  taunt 
of  *  bankruptcy,'  which  is  levelled,  here  and  in  France  and  in 
Germany  (with  the  famous  '  ignorabimus '  of  Dubois-Reymond), 
at  scientific  pretension.  Never  was  a  shaft  so  aimless  or  so 
innocuous.  Because  some  meddlesome  sciolists  endeavoured 
in  vain  to  extract  rules  for  the  moral  life  from  physical 
phenomena,  it  is  the  acme  of  religious  arrogance  to  blame  the 
system,  when  in  their  own  department  they  had  won  such 
results.  But  we  have  made  no  little  step  towards  clearness  of 
thought  if  we  recognise  that  man  is  neither  *  an  organ  of  pure 
reason,'  nor  a  higher,  that  is,  more  complex,  animal,  guided  only 
by  the  push  and  thrust  of  outward  circumstance;  but  first 
and  foremost,  and  in  spite  of  his  introspective  and  self-centred 
temper  to-day,  a  social  being,  eager  to  find  a  cause  worth  his 
support,  actuated  by  generous  instincts,  which  owe  little 
allegiance  to  the  control  of  calculation  and  reflection.  It  is 
in  the  conviction  that  neither  the  eighteenth  nor  the  nine- 
teenth centuries  exhausted  the  nature  of  man  that  we  are 
proposing  to-day  a  fresh  and,  it  may  be,  lasting  division  of 
territory.  The  former  cared  nothing  for  average  men,  though 
it  talked  much  of  average  humanity.  The  latter,  moving  in 
somewhat  blind  sentiment  along  the  path  of  so-called  political 
reform,  must  confess  that  it  has  not  properly  understood  the 
character  and  needs  of  those  masses  whose  ideal  rights  it 
maintained  with  such  unselfish  vigour.  And  while  this 
enthusiasm  for  freedom  has  been  damped  by  the  cynical  and 
sinister  results  of  the  parallel  movement,  of  scientific  induction, 
men  are  perhaps  only  too  ready  to  despair  finally  of  the  salva- 
tion of  the  individual.  He  is  to  be  left  to  penal  settlements, 
to  coercive  legislation.  We  have  at  least  outlived  inordinate 
confidence  in  intellect  apart  from  experience  and  the  sympathy 
18 


274    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

and  tolerance  which  it  should  bring ;  we  have  found  nothing 
to  controvert,  but  also  nothing  to  guide  us  in  peculiarly  human 
duties,  in  the  advancing  certainty  of  facts,  pursued  down  their 
several  avenues  of  knowledge.  But  we  have  at  last  met  man 
face  to  face ;  we  are  endeavouring  to  understand  that  which 
is  unsophisticated — the  child,  the  savage,  the  peasant.  And 
it  is  because  we  believe  in  the  Gospel  message  as  the  unique 
medicine  of  society  through  the  individual,  that  we  accept  in 
an  age  that  would  be  *  democratic '  if  it  could,  the  canon  of 
value  and  of  worth) — at  least  a  working  test  and  guarantee 
in  a  world  where  all  really  ultimate  questions  are  still  so 
profoundly  obscure.  But  a  widespread  darkness  is  no  reason 
for  shutting  out  such  glimmers  of  light  as  are  permitted  to 
reach  us. 


B 

On  the  Pretensions  of  Esoteric  Religion 

§  I.  The  claim  of  '  Catholicity,'  of  universal  application  :  unique 
appeal  of  Christianity,  though  it  might  adjust  itself  to  individual 
needs  :  tendency  of  all  religion  to  divide  into  popular  and  esoteric  : 
Plato's  '  noble  falsehood ' :  this  precedent  may  excuse  all  deviation 
in  civil  crisis  from  ordinary  canons  of  right. 

§  2.  Often  a  sincere  desire  to  give  the  ignorant  the  best  possible  : 
much  that  is  slothful  in  the  freedom  we  allow  others  cheerfully  to-day  : 
the  true  duty  of  slave-owners,  as  of '  imperial '  races  :  esoteric  reserve 
in  the  early  scholastics  :  some  myths  rejected :  unworthy  reserve 
not  a  fair  charge  against  medicsval  hierarchy. 

§  3.  Parents  unconscious  of  offspring's  maturity  :  Protestant 
religion  betrays  a  tendency  to  fall  asunder  into  two  :  lack  of 
sympathy  with  the  plain  man  in  the  eighteenth  century  :  Rousseau 
and  English  Revivalism  appeal  to  direct  experience,  not  to  reason  : 
a  similar  modesty  in  the  science  of  the  next  age. 

§  4.  Science  has  appeared,  deserting  its  true  province  of  par- 
ticulars, to  teach  an  esoteric  cult  :  '  monistic '  indijference  has  no 
charm  for  the  average  mind,  no  claim  on  the  ordinary  life  :  in  the 
reduction  of  the  simplest  moral  axiom  to  the  sphere  of  faith  all '  boasting 
is  excluded,'  and  wise  and  unlearned  stand  on  the  same  lowly  level. 

§  I.  One  of  the  safest  and  most  obvious  tests  of  the  value 


ESOTERIC  RELIGION  275 

and  benefit  of  an  institution  is  its  catholicity,  Tiie  wider  the 
circle  to  which  it  appeals,  the  greater  its  beneficial  effect,  and 
(what  may  even  weigh  more  with  some  minds)  the  better  the 
test  of  its  'truth,'  its  accordance  not  merely  with  a  brief 
national  temper  or  private  idiosyncrasy  but  with  some  ob- 
jective reality.  It  was  a  ground  of  early  attack  upon 
Christianity  that  it  wished  to  be  catholic  and  exclusive.  It 
was  indeed  a  reproach  that  rising  from  the  narrow  creed  of  an 
isolated  people  it  claimed  to  transcend  all  distinctions  of  race, 
age,  and  rank,  and  blend  in  one  family  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth.  And  though  the  emphasis  of  the  appeal  might  vary 
slightly  in  each  case,  the  appeal  was  always  the  same :  man's 
weakness  and  need  of  God,  God's  '  tender  love  towards  man- 
kind,' and  (the  eternal  religious  paradox)  the  ennobling 
possibility  for  man  of  willing  service  in  the  highest  cause. 
To  one,  the  stress  might  be  laid  on  comfort  in  unmerited 
distress  ;  to  another,  on  the  rescue  from  some  special  thraldom 
of  evil  habit ;  to  another,  on  deliverance  from  the  vagrancy  of 
intellectual  uncertainty  ;  to  another,  once  again,  on  the  touching 
spectacle  of  a  visible  and  cheerful  community  at  peace  within 
itself.  To  one  class  alone  did  the  message  appeal  in  vain,  to 
those  who  felt  no  need  of  such  help.  For  such,  even  the 
Saviour  Himself  could  *  do  no  mighty  work.'  But  let  the  weak- 
ness and  dependence  be  once  allowed,  and  redemption  was  nigh 
at  hand  \  and  in  all  the  difference  or  versatility  of  its  application, 
the  Gospel  lesson  was  always  the  same — "God  so  loved  the 
world."  To  some,  rest  and  quiet  after  the  turmoil  of  life  in 
the  *  everlasting  arms ' ;  to  others,  the  fiery  zeal  of  missionary 
enterprise ; — to  one,  the  remote  cell  of  the  hermit ;  to  another, 
the  martyr's  stake;  to  another,  the  auditorium  of  the  cate- 
chumens, or  some  meeting-place  of  earnest  yet  pagan  thought. 
But  throughout,  '  one  and  the  self-same  spirit.'  Now,  so  far  as 
we  know  from  historical  research,  every  great  religion  has 
suffered  by  drifting  into  two  unequal  parts :  the  *  truths,'  or 
visible  images  and  stories,  accommodated  to  the  vulgar ;  and 
the  real  meaning  of  this  symbolism,  entrusted  only  to  the  wise 
or  proficient.  It  has  been  divided  into  exoteric  and  esoteric 
religion;  simple  duties,  blind  obedience,  dogmas  verbally 
repeated,  ceremonies  unintelligently  performed,  on  the  one 
hand ;  on  the  other,  secret  beliefs  or  practices,  sceptical  study, 


276    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

ironical  compliance,  authoritative  utterance  to  the  laity.  Even 
Plato's  generous  rulers  had  to  appeal  in  an  ideal  State  to  the 
influence  of  falsehood.  The  welfare  of  the  State,  the  dutiful 
submission  of  its  citizens,  seemed  to  depend  on  the  acceptance 
of  a  definite  mythology,  which  amongst  other  ends  was  to 
reconcile  them  to  distinctions  of  lot.  It  would  be  easy, 
following  this  innocent  example,  to  justify  logically  any  special 
deviation  from  veracity  and  justice,  at  the  trumpet-call,  *  salus 
Reipublicae.'  The  natural  perversion  of  this  kind  of  doctrine 
was  seen  even  in  Plato's  day,  in  the  intermittent  murder  of 
dangerous  helots ;  and  the  Venetian  oligarchy  and  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  can  plead  the  same  precedent.  In  purely  religious 
matters  it  implies  the  strict  regulation  of  the  supply  of  dogma 
to  the  vulgar,  the  perpetual  tutelage  of  the  uneducated,  com- 
fortable but  unprogressive,  and  the  haughty  yet  ironical 
pretensions  of  the  privileged  hierarchy. 

§  2.  This  is  the  defect  which  follows  in  the  train  of  any 
sincere  solicitude  for  the  ignorant — a  desire  to  give  the  best 
that  is  possible  for  them  to  understand.  Like  our  boasted 
political  enfranchisement,  there  is  much  that  is  slothful  in  the 
shifting  of  responsibility,  in  the  open  Bible,  in  the  public  dis- 
cussion of  abstruse  questions,  in  leaving  so  much  unsettled  for 
the  unstrung  conscience  of  youth.  We  can  see  two  motives 
at  work  in  either  tendency :  an  eager  sympathy  with  those  who 
do  not  enjoy  privilege,  and  a  secret  desire  to  be  rid  of  its 
burden.  But  it  cannot  well  be  denied  that  with  the  Reforma- 
tion, religion  surrendered  much  of  its  contact  with  daily  life, 
the  minister  much  of  his  minute  influence  on  his  flock ;  that 
to-day,  the  retirement  of  the  competent  and  conscientious 
from  the  guidance  of  affairs  may  soon  constitute  a  real  danger. 
It  is  more  difficult,  yet  infinitely  more  interesting,  to  guide 
the  independent  than  to  govern  the  slave.  Yet  so  far  as  the 
ultimate  welfare  of  the  latter  was  concerned,  how  often  would 
it  not  have  been  the  kindest  policy  to  retain  boldly  the  odious 
name  of  slave-master,  rather  than  imperil  the  future  of  the 
weak  by  premature  emancipation  !  The  Mediaeval  Church 
was  sincere  in  its  claims  to  universal  dominion,  not  merely 
over  the  hearts  or  counsels  of  kings,  but  over  the  minute 
details,  commercial  intercourse,  of  gild  traditions,  of  peasant 
life.      The   dogma,   carefully   prepared,   was   derived   to   the 


ESOTERIC  RELIGION  277 

obedient  layman,  like  sacramental  grace,  through  the  proper 
channel  of  the  accredited  priesthood.  It  is  difficult  to  accuse 
the  great  names  of  the  scholastic  period  of  intellectual  pride, 
yet  it  is  plain  that  something  of  esoteric  reserve  entered  into 
the  priestly  spirit.  It  is  impossible  to  bring  home  either  to 
Templar  or  Jesuit  the  sweeping  accusations  of  irreligion 
which  have  been  levelled  at  them  in  company  with  all  secret 
and  mysterious  confraternities,  challenging  envy  and  suspicion, 
like  the  Freemasons  to-day,  by  their  wealth  or  influence.  To 
substantiate  the  prosecution  in  a  few  cases  is  not  to  accept 
the  charge  as  generally  proved  against  the  whole  body.  It  is 
inconceivable  (as  has  indeed  been  alleged)  that  the  admission 
of  a  Templar  implied  in  every  case  a  trampling  on  the  Cross, 
or  that  the  inner  doctrine  of  the  devoted  company  of  Jesus  is 
a  barren  Deism.  It  was  not  pride  of  intellect  that  hastened 
on  Protestant  reform ;  it  was  loss  of  conviction  and  honour  in 
the  very  headquarters  of  Catholicism, — "  God  has  given  us  the 
Papacy ;  let  us  enjoy  the  gift," — confronted  by  the  chivalrous 
Teutonic  individualism  which  cannot  stand  a  lie.  With  all 
the  various  forms  of  reserve  which  might  be  taken  by  an 
aristocratic  religion,  accommodated  for  acceptance  to  the 
popular  competence,  it  cannot  be  honestly  maintained  that 
the  Roman  Church  as  a  whole  has  seriously  erred  in  keeping 
back  truth  from  the  people.  It  is  almost  impossible  (so  com 
plex  is  human  nature)  to  explore  and  analyse  motives  with 
success.  But  a  sincere  reluctance  to  burden  a  weaker  brother 
with  a  load  of  dialectic  may  be  laid  to  the  credit  of  the  Church, 
no  less  than  the  visible  and  picturesque  ceremony,  which, 
while  it  might  unduly  materialise  the  spiritual  element,  tamed 
and  interested  and  occupied  the  eager  barbarians,  and  in 
concrete  form  taught  them  useful  lessons. 

§  3.  It  was  the  chief  mistake  of  the  hierarchy  not  to  under- 
stand when  their  pupil  became  adult.  But  it  was,  for  many 
reasons,  both  a  natural  and  creditable  error.  It  is  difficult  for 
the  ordinary  parent  to  realise  when  his  offspring  is  mature; 
and  to  let  the  fledgling  go  from  home  to  the  only  effective 
educator — experience. 

The  unfortunate  confessionalism  of  the  Reformed  Churches, 
their  preoccupation  with  literal  orthodoxy,  hindered  the  effective 
application  of  the  great  and  simple  truths  to  which  the  earlier 


278    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

movement  appealed.  In  an  age  in  which  so  much  deference 
was  paid  to  Enlightenment,  Religion  could  not  fail  to  assume 
two  guises — for  the  educated  and  the  ignorant.  We  have 
pointed  out  the  supposed  merit  of  Deistic  simplicity,  the 
universal  currency  of  the  few  dogmas  they  were  still  content 
to  leave.  But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  imagine  the  Deists  as 
warmly  sympathetic  with  the  peculiar  difficulties  of  the  inferior 
classes ;  and  their  lack  of  warmth  was  fatal  to  their  proposed 
substitute  for  revealed  and  established  Religion.  The  whole 
age  ignored  the  plain  man,  though  it  professed  to  recognise 
only  a  popular  standard.  Clearness  and  intelligibility  was 
the  sole  test ;  but  it  accepted  what  was  clear  and  intelligible 
only  to  that  strangely  limited  and  uniform  mind,  polite 
society  in  West  Europe.  In  Germany  and  in  England,  re- 
actions toward  a  personal  religious  pietism  took  place.  These 
excluded  the  very  notion  of  esoteric  reserve,  in  their  disdain  of 
secular  wisdom,  of  the  support  which  dialectic  and  preciseness 
of  dogma  might  be  supposed  to  yield  to  Faith.  Like  the 
movement  of  Rousseau,  these  appealed  to  the  ground  of  the 
heart,  to  the  direct  immediacy  of  access  to  God,  to  a  mystical 
sense,  which  has  never  been  wanting  in  the  Church,  even  in 
the  most  arid  times.  Viewed  with  profound  disapproval  by 
the  upholders  of  *  reasonable'  religion,  of  prudence  and  of 
common  sense,  in  whose  ears  '  enthusiasm '  was  the  most 
damning  charge,  the  renewed  power  of  personal  religion 
flourished  apace,  and  in  our  own  country  contributed  directly 
to  the  later  '  Catholic '  movement  some  of  its  best  features. 
It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  any  claim  to  greater  intellectual 
insight  should  be  allowed  in  the  nineteenth  century.  A  very 
real  and  general  desire  to  see  things  as  they  are,  not  merely 
as  confronted  by  tradition  and  by  prejudice,  led  to  patient 
research,  candid  avowal  of  ignorance,  and  open  discussion. 

§  4.  That  which  is  lasting  in  this  age  is  neither  its  political 
development  nor  its  fancied  recovery  of  lost  principles,  but 
merely  its  mastery  of  facts.  It  examines  these  in  their  special 
groups  without  undue  prepossession,  and  above  all  with  no 
moral  bias.  But  the  scientific  spirit  sometimes  seems  to  teach 
that  it  is  unadvisable  to  dazzle  the  vulgar  with  naked  *  Truth.' 
It  has  proved  hard,  if  not  impossible,  to  co-ordinate  into  a 
system,  to  animate  with  a  humanistic  sympathy,  these  various 


ESOTERIC  RELIGION  279 

groups  of  necessary  facts,  which  are  somehow,  in  the  end, 
kindred.  Men  have  almost  ceased  (or  will  soon  cease  alto- 
gether) to  speak  of  the  'religion  of  Science'  as  something 
apart  from  and  superior  to  the  *  religion  of  man,'  as  this  is 
revealed  in  the  Gospel.  Esoteric  religion  has  always,  in  past 
ages  as  to-day,  tended  towards  a  negative  Pantheism,  and  the 
indifference  of  distinctions,  as  of  matter  and  spirit ;  towards 
denial  of  any  absoluteness  of  division,  in  questions  of  right 
and  wrong.  But  however  strongly  philosophic  reflection  may 
set*  in  favour  of  this  monistic  apprehension  of  the  world, 
it  is  certain  that  it  has  few  attractions  for  the  average  mind. 
The  religious  revival  in  the  nineteenth  century  has  been, 
after  all,  social,  not  speculative ;  and  in  the  relegation  of  the 
most  elementary  axioms  to  the  realm  of  faith  there  is  a 
real  guarantee  against  the  revival  of  intellectual  pride.  So 
long  as  the  *  rightness  of  reason,'  the  '  power  and  wisdom 
and  benevolence  of  the  Creator,'  *the  certainty  of  moral 
recompense,'  were  truths  self-evident  to  the  educated,  and 
sufficient  for  their  guidance,  while  the  masses  stood  in  need 
of  positive  doctrines,  personal  and  historic ;  there  was  room  for 
the  '  lesser  and  the  greater  mystery,'  according  to  the  adept's 
proficiency.  But  now  that  these  are  no  less  matters  of  pious 
faith  than  the  most  abstruse  'credendum'  of  Christian 
theology,  all  men  are  reduced,  without  respect  to  their  insight 
or  attainments,  to  the  same  humble  level. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  V— A 
Ages  of  Faith 

§  I.  The  present  age  the  Age  of  Faith  :  every  first  principle  {in 
morals  as  much  as  in  doctrine)  called  in  question  :  Western  mind 
cannot  settle  into  pure  monotheism  {unwarranted  by  facts)  or  mere 
social  convention  :  Christianity  indeed  stronger  than  other  creeds, 
because  of  its  influence  :  Science  respects  only  what  is,  and  finds 
only  this  justified  :  the  new  canon  of  authenticity,  survival  in  the 
theoretic  field,  proved  value  in  the  practical. 

§  2.  Reluctance  to  speak  of  '  duties,'  stress  on  *  rights  '  :  marks 
not  necessarily  a  weakening  of  moral  fibre,  but  a  natural  result  of 
thought-development :  Dualism  of  law  :  a  condition  of  welfare,  not 
an  arbitrary  stipulation  :  general  agreement  allowed,  even  of  the 
modern  idiosyncrasies  :  even  this  not  clearly  defined  :  '  Catholicity ' 
only  belongs  to  the  first  axioms  of  logic  :  thinness  of  universality  : 
individualism  in  conception  of  heaven  :  we  remould  social  convention 
and  question  moral  law. 

§  3.  '  Rights  '  not  '  duties  '  prominent  in  Christianity  as  well  as 
in  eighteenth-century  Enlightenment :  privilege  before  precept :  op- 
position to  the  rule  of  majorities  quite  as  marked  to-day  as  earlier 
revolt  against  personal  tyranny  :  order  of  the  Church  Catechism  : 
outside  Christianity  religion  often  means  the  sacrifice  of  the  worth- 
less to  the  unknown  :  State  has  lost  its  power  of  appeal ;  threat  and 
compulsion  :  the  Enlightenment  {at  its  best)  agrees  with  Christianity  / 
man  not  to  be  bound,  but  won,  to  the  right. 

§  4.  '  But  is  not  this  vocation  and  election  a  mere  mythologic  pos- 
tulate ?  and  this  faith  in  a  transcendental  destiny  a  bar  to  reasonable 
and  modest  progress  here  ?  '  :  but  this  objection  true  of  all  the 
principles  animating  the  idealist  movements  of  last  century  :  all 
Abolitionist  measures  imply  treatment  of  men  as  better  than  they 
actually  are  :  '  man  can  only  attain  freedom  or  political  responsi- 
bility if  considered  already  as  deserving  of  it '  :  extension  of  suffrage 
{where  not  purely  utilitarian)  followed  same  lines  :  rights  before 
duties  :  duties  learnt  only  incidentally  by  exercising  rights  :  science 
all  the  time  was  accumulating  directly  opposite  evidence. 

§  5.  Both  the  claims  of  the  Enlightenment  for  man  and  the  titles 
of  the  newly  baptized  constitute  a  challenge  to  facts  :    the  confidence 


AGES  OF  FAITH  281 

of  the  reforming  secularist  more  a  *  venture  of  faith  '  than  the  Christian 
hope  :  democracy  claims  immediate  enjoyment :  subjective  experience 
confirms  the  value  of  Christian  surrender  of  faith  :  philanthropy 
disheartened :  earlier  appeal  for  deferred  enjoyment  and  self-denying 
toil :  would  he  out  of  place  to-day  :  effect  of  doubt  in  immortality  : 
unselfishness  would  still  be  practised,  but  it  could  not  be  rationally 
defended. 

§  6.  The  Middle  Ages  as  'ages  of  faith'  :  inapplicable  term: 
immediacy  of  the  Catholic  Church,  strong  and  rational :  the  '  ages 
of  faith  '  begin  with  the  Reformation  :  in  spite  of  the  lessons  of 
actuality,  we  cling  to  old  beliefs  :  the  postulate  of  reformers  to-day 
'  dim  mythologic  postulate,'  '  ventures  of  faith  and  hope  '  :  this  in- 
vocation of  Faith  more  than  ever  before  necessary ;  the  Church 
alone  answers. 


§  I.  It  will  not  be  found  needful  to  deal  at  any  great  length 
with  the  meaning  and  implication  of  this  phrase — 'Ages  of 
Faith.'  The  standpoint  occupied  by  these  discussions  (whether 
true  or  false  diagnosis  of  the  course  of  thought)  must  be  by 
this  time  too  clearly  ascertained  to  stand  in  want  of  further 
definition.  It  has  been  maintained  in  them  that  the  present 
age  is  the  real  '  age  of  Faith  ' ;  because  the  function  of  reason 
has  been  reduced  to  a  registry  of  phenomena,  because  no  single 
tenet  of  the  scantiest  theology  or  of  the  most  attenuated  moral 
code  remains  at  the  present  moment  unshaken.  Let  it  be 
clearly  understood,  and  let  men  face  the  issue  honestly,  that 
the  doctrine  of  purposive  creation  and  moral  plan  in  the 
world,  the  very  definition  and  use  of  *  virtue,'  the  justification 
of  unselfishness  (otherwise  aimless)  stand  on  no  different 
level  to  the  particular  dogmas  of  Christianity.  They  are  pure 
matters  of  pious  and  personal  faith  whenever  they  pass  beyond 
social  convention,  the  compact  of  the  weak.  Arguments 
for  and  against  these  beUefs  (so  indispensable  to  the  social 
life)  play  harmlessly  round  them  ;  conviction,  if  it  follows  at 
all,  comes  from  another  source.  Among  other  nations,  where 
prevails  a  prehistoric  monotheism  or  its  substitute,  secular 
socialism,  deference  to  custom  and  respect  for  tradition  may 
prevent  a  really  shrewd  and  outspoken  inquiry  into  facts. 
But  the  Western  mind,  once  embarked  on  an  independent 
voyage  of  exploration,  cannot  be  recalled  from  dangerous 
shoals.  In  the  new  light  of  scientific  fact  and  theory,  the 
same  doubt  that  sets  aside  the  Divine  mission  of  Jesus  ig 


282    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

admissible  against  a  moral  creator  or  a  teleologic  aim.  In 
strictness,  indeed,  the  Christian  message  is  less  open  to  assault 
than  a  vague  monistic  piety,  or  even  moral  Theism.  For  the 
scientific  spirit  finds  that  which  /V,  that  which  survives,  justified  at 
the  outset  by  this  very  fact.  And,  whatever  its  origin,  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Gospel  over  all  Western  development,  and  its  peculiar 
consecration  of  the  personal,  its  appeal  to  loyalty,  is  beyond 
question.  Study  may  indeed  point  out  changes  of  emphasis, 
from  doctrinal  to  moral,  from  individualist  ethics  to  social 
interest,  from  outward  dignity  in  the  world  to  inward  calm, 
but  never  to  a  fundamental  rearrangement  of  first  principles. 
And  as  to-day  the  chief  problem  before  believer  and  unbeliever 
alike  is  the  position  of  the  Church  and  its  teaching  in  the 
future  community,  we  recognise  first  the  fact  that  it  is  still 
a  power  to  be  reckoned  with,  next  that  it  has  a  practical 
value  for  the  average  man  of  sober  judgment,  as  vigorous 
institution  or  as  moral  solace  and  appeal; — only  in  the 
last  and  subordinate  place  does  the  scientific  spirit  allow 
the  inquiry  to  be  raised  as  to  the  truth  of  the  message,  the 
authenticity  of  its  credentials.  For  authenticity  is  proved  solely 
by  survival,  not  a  priori.  We  have  already  called  attention 
to  this  diiferent  attitude  in  criticism;  stress  on  the  strong 
theoretical  justification  by  the  Fact  that  it  is  there: — in  the 
practical  field,  the  acknowledged  value  of  principles  and 
traditions  in  an  age  which  has  outlived  all  its  own,  and  is 
singularly  ready  (outside  a  certain  sphere  of  utilitarian  inter- 
ference) to  accept  not  ungratefully  any  guidance,  any  extraneous 
support  to  the  beliefs  which  still  seem  essential  to  social  welfare. 
§  2.  It  is  a  commonplace  to-day  that  we  are  afraid  to  speak 
openly  of  '  duties  ' :  and  the  only  safe  topic  is  '  rights.'  In  one 
sense,  this  marks  not,  as  many  idly  suppose,  a  weakening  of 
the  moral  fibre,  but  a  plain  and  necessary  development  of 
common  sense,  the  individual  consciousness,  confronted  with 
experience.  The  terms  duty,  law,  obligation,  even  religion, 
speak  of  dualism  and  chains  and  bondage.  A  law  is  obeyed, 
surely  not  because  it  is  an  end-in-itself,  or  a  stipulation,  perhaps 
capricious,  of  a  higher  power,  but  because  it  is  a  condition  of 
welfare.  We  take  it  on  trust,  but  on  reaching  the  age  which  bids 
us  inquire  and  criticise,  we  find  there  is  perhaps  nothing  sacro- 
sanct in  the  prohibition  or  command ;  and  in  modern  times  we 


AGES  OF  FAITH  283 

have  certainly  outlived  the  notion  of  sacredness,  in  that 
which  is  obnoxious  to  perpetual  alteration,  both  in  principle 
and  detail.  The  centre  of  gravity  has  passed  irrevocably  from 
the  objective  fact  to  the  subjective  tribunal.  "  Only  in  terms 
of  myself  can  I  interpret  the  world."  And  herein  lies  a  plea 
at  least  for  the  *  truth '  as  well  as  the  use  of  the  humanistic  or 
*  moral '  attitude,  which  of  late  years  has  appeared  so  ill-founded 
and  problematic.  We  can  never  know  the  *  thing-in-itself '  or 
the  particular  phenomena  except  in  this  relation.  *  Truth' 
may  indeed  exist  somewhere  as  a  unity  beyond  our  ken, 
but  in  the  actual  world  it  has  as  many  appearances  as  there 
are  thinkers :  ^uot  homines,  tot  veritates.  But  this  same  rela- 
tivity, which  limits  the  jurisdiction  of  our  particular  colour 
sense,  musical  and  aesthetic  taste,  moral  view  and  ideal, 
may  also  be  retrieved  by  the  large  though  vague  resemblance, 
irreducible  to  exact  canon,  which  exists  between  the  judg- 
ment of  the  varying  units.  What  is  significant  is  first  the 
idiosyncrasy  of  our  sensations  and  our  verdicts,  next  the 
agreement  that  blends  these  variegated  rays  into  a  single  shaft 
of  light.  But  if  we  are  thankful  for  this  vague  and  general 
guidance,  let  us  be  modest  enough  not  to  claim  absoluteness 
even  for  this.  It  is  not  even  capable  of  strict  definition; 
Truth,  as  well  as  law,  is  always  weak,  owing  to  its  preten- 
sions to  universality  (cAActVct  .  .  .  8ia  to  KaOoXov).  In  this 
light,  as  Novalis  saw,  the  uncompelled  sympathy  and  fellow- 
feeling  of  another  is  of  vital  importance,  and  gives  a  new  and 
irrestistible  confidence  to  our  own  convictions.  The  spontane- 
ous in  us  meets  a  voluntary  approval  outside,  and  leaves  the 
domain  of  illusion  or  hallucination.  We  do  not  enter  bound,  as 
the  votaries  into  the  sacred  grove  of  the  Semnones,  into  a  rigid 
realm  of  Truth.  That  which  is  catholic  in  the  genuine  sense 
is  confined  to  the  attenuated  first  axioms  of  logic.  The 
universal  is  thin  and  rarefied,  like  the  vast  and  homogeneous 
vapour  of  the  nebular  hypothesis  ;  life  pulses  with  conflict  and 
variety,  as  light  in  its  pure  brilliance  is  made  up  of  all  hues 
merged  for  the  general  effect,  but  still  distinguishable  in  them- 
selves. And  as  truth  here  is  partial  and  relative,  so  we  must 
believe  heaven  hereafter,  no  flat  uniform  perfection,  suddenly 
reducing  to  a  dead  level  all  the  countless  varieties  of  character 
and  predilection,   but  a  hopeful  outlook  for  future  develop- 


284    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

ment  of  the  qualities  here  handselled  and  disciplined,  under 
the  eyes  of  the  same  Master  and  in  the  same  service  of  the 
right.  This  kind  of  '  individualism,'  whether  based  on  these 
or  similar  arguments,  is  in  truth  the  only  dogma  that  has  any 
genuine  influence  to-day,  that  Christianity  can  afford  to  recog- 
nise. Law  succumbs  to  inquiry  :  first  appearing  as  aweful  and 
not  to  be  questioned,  it  next  is  seen  as  a  tiresome  restraint 
on  individual  freedom;  finally,  in  the  inevitable  *  synthesis,' 
as  a  loving  and  needful  provision  against  the  rashness  of 
judgment  not  yet  mature,  a  condition  not  a  hindrance  of 
progress.  But  in  this  process  it  has  become  a  means ;  it  is 
no  longer  an  end ;  and  as  we  are  at  liberty  to  evade  physical 
law,  so  we  are  free  to  remould  social  convention,  and  (within 
certain  limits)  to  question  the  absoluteness  of  moral  authority. 
§  3.  The  changed  temper  which  dwells  on  rights  rather 
than  on  duties  is  justified  not  merely  by  the  whole  underlying 
motive  of  the  eighteenth-century  Enlightenment,  of  modern 
political  reform,  but  by  the  presupposition  of  Christianity 
itself.  The  early  bloodless  revolution  in  thought,  the  later 
sanguinary  outburst,  the  patient  development,  part  idealist 
part  utilitarian,  within  the  last  fifty  years,  all  arose  from 
indignation  at  the  disregard  of  individual  rights,  at  the  mis- 
carriage of  personal  justice,  at  the  abuse  of  privilege.  There 
was  among  the  best  no  idea  of  substituting  one  arbitrary 
sovereignty  for  another;  but  a  visionary  dream  of  direct 
government  of  the  people  by  themselves.  It  is  wholly  an 
error  to  suppose  that  the  average  man  bows  more  willingly 
to  the  'will  of  the  majority,'  of  which  he  does  not  happen 
to  be  a  member,  than  to  the  edicts  of  a  king  into  whose 
council-chamber  he  cannot  claim  admittance.  There  is  every 
probability  (as  history  repeatedly  shows)  that  the  latter,  even 
in  his  selfish  aims,  is  really  furthering  impartially  the  national 
welfare,  and  is  its  best  representative.  There  is  the  strongest 
presumption  that  even  at  their  most  generous  level  the 
efforts  of  sections  will  seldom  rise  much  beyond  exultation  in 
some  party-victory.  There  is  the  same  spirit  of  dull  opposition 
to  majority-rule  as  to  court-caprice  or  bureaucratic  interference. 
And  this  is  in  no  sense  a  sign  of  degeneracy ;  it  is  only  a  sign 
of  maturity,  which  conceives  calmly  and  in  relation  to  itself, 
which  refuses  to  be  the  dupe  of  a  specious  phrase  or  an 


AGES  OF  FAITH  285 

eloquent  speaker.  And  Christianity  too  knows  nothing  of 
submission  to  law  for  the  sake  of  law  and  its  automatic 
uniformity.  It  is  noted  by  preachers  and  divines  that,  of  set 
purpose  or  by  felicitous  chance,  the  Church  Catechism 
begins  by  a  triumphant  recapitulation  of  Christian  privilege^ 
next  of  Christian  belief  (an  account  of  the  solicitude,  the 
sacrifices  of  God  to  recall  us  from  ruin),  and  only  in  the 
third  place  arrives  at  the  duties  which  are  incumbent  on  one 
who  has  for  no  merit  of  his  own  already  received  so  many 
gratuitous  rights.  Like  begets  like ;  the  spirit  of  Christian 
endeavour  and  martyrdom  is  no  idle  surrender  of  the  worth- 
less to  the  unknown,  but  a  loyal  attempt,  however  poor,  to 
meet  the  love  of  God.  Brought  up  in  such  a  school,  it  is  no 
wonder  that  the  Christian  looks  askance  at  the  claims  of  the 
State  to  obedience  and  even  to  love.  The  two  foremost 
nations  in  European  culture  are  in  the  throes  of  civil  war, 
each  in  their  typical  manner  excited  or  phlegmatic.  Once 
more  a  religious  question,  what  is  Caesar's,  what  Divine  ?  has 
arisen  to  embitter  the  good  feeling  of  the  social  life.  The 
State,  which  to-day  is  but  the  alternation  of  faction,  honest 
but  discontinuous,  each  bent  on  retrieving  the  errors  or 
reversing  the  policy  of  the  last  Government,  cannot  help 
having  recourse  to  threat  and  compulsion ;  but  it  has  thereby 
lost  its  power  of  appeal.  It  begins  in  suspicion  of  its  subjects 
as  much  to-day  as  formerly.  Christianity  (as  well  as  the 
Enlightenment  in  its  more  generous,  least  cynical  moods) 
begins  with  the  election,  the  vocation,  the  glorious  destiny  of 
the  individual,  who  by  this  feels  himself  not  bound,  but  won, 
to  a  better  life  of  grateful  service. 

§  4.  Now  it  cannot  be  raised  as  a  reproach  against  Christianity 
that  these  privileges  are  dim  mythologic  postulates  resting  on  a 
system  of  imposture  by  which  the  wealthy  have  tricked  the 
poor  into  submission,  in  hopes  of  recompense  beyond  the 
tomb.  I  believe  here  is  the  real  gravamen  against  the  Church 
in  the  minds  of  earnest  social  reformers.  In  laying  stress  on 
faith  and  futurity,  the  poor  have  been  cajoled  into  letting  slip 
immediate  opportunities  for  redress  of  grievance;  discontent 
has  been  stigmatised  by  an  interested  hierarchy,  in  the  pay 
of  the  State,  as  the  chief  crime  in  the  sight  of  Heaven ;  and 
thus  the  path  of  advance  has  been  barred.     Now  it  must  be 


286  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

clear  to  any  student  of  the  political  or  social  movements 
during  last  century  that  all  the  first  principles  which  have 
animated  idealistic  zeal,  in  overturning  abuse  of  privilege,  in 
recovering  lost  rights,  and  in  renewing  lost  self-respect, 
have  without  exception  been  of  the  nature  of  *  mythologic 
postulates.'  One  and  all  have  entailed  violent  contradiction 
of  existing  circumstance,  defiance  of  every  possible  ex- 
perience. The  enfranchisement  of  the  negro  rested  on  a 
somewhat  complex  general  notion,  compounded  of  Christian 
sentiment  for  the  weaker  and  oppressed,  a  '  classical-antique ' 
veneration  for  undefined  liberty  as  in  itself  desirable,  a 
rudimentary  sense  of  justice,  and  behind  all,  the  pressure  of 
certain  economic  facts.  The  Abolitionist  movement  was  a 
*  leap  in  the  dark,'  a  presumption  that  individually  the  slave 
was  better  than  he  appeared,  and  in  any  case  could  only 
attain  freedom  if  he  was  already  treated  as  deserving  it.  The 
sympathy  with  oppressed  classes  and  nationalities,  being  also 
idealistic,  derived  most  of  its  warmth  from  a  glowing  and 
prophetic  prospect  of  what  they  might  become  if  rightly  used, 
and  was  seldom  reinforced  by  any  unmistakable  sign  of 
their  present  merit.  The  gradual  extension  of  voting-power 
in  England  might  indeed  very  justly  be  defended  on  grounds 
of  prudence ;  it  being  not  a  sentiment  of  justice  alone,  but  the 
pure  common  sense  of  worldly  administration,  which  counsels 
the  removal  of  every  grievance  before  it  is  acutely  felt  by 
the  sufferer.  It  certainly  could  not  find  much  support  in 
sober  logic;  and  indeed,  at  the  time  when  such  measures 
were  passed  (largely,  it  must  be  feared,  from  partizan  motives), 
the  science  of  government  was  fast  becoming  so  complicated 
a  business,  was  falling  so  certainly  from  the  hands  of  the 
amateur  into  the  hands  of  the  adept  and  professional,  that  it 
seemed  a  pleasantry  to  secure  with  some  solemnity  the  pre- 
dominance of  ignorance  in  the  national  councils.  It  cannot 
then  be  for  one  moment  doubtful  that  the  real  lever  in  this 
remarkable  and  bloodless  revolution  was  a  Christian  and  an 
idealistic  view  of  human  nature,  which  in  faith  looked  far 
beyond  the  facts  and  even  the  probabilities,  which  dwelt  on 
privilege  first  before  coming  to  deserts,  on  rights  before 
enumerating  duties.  It  was  a  gage  of  defiance  thrown,  by 
the  reaction  of  a  sentiment   largely  pietistic  and   religious 


•     AGES  OF  FAITH  287 

without  knowing  it,  against  the  fatalistic  lesson  which  was 
being  urged  on  men  from  each  new  scientific  discovery,  of 
the  natural  inequality  of  mankind,  the  certain  doom  of  the 
subject  races,  of  the  weaker  vessel,  of  honest  simplicity,  either 
in  the  rivalry  of  statesmanship  or  commerce. 

§  5.  The  imaginary  prerogative  of  man,  "  bom  free  and 
equal  and  with  an  inaUenable  claim  to  happiness  and  right 
of  self-development,"  is  no  less  a  "  dim  mythologic  postulate  " 
than  the  solemn  titles  of  the  newly  baptized,  "  a  member  of 
Christ,  a  child  of  God,  and  an  inheritor  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven."  Both  are  a  visible  paradox,  a  strong  protest  against 
facts;  a  presumption  in  favour  of  the  triumph  of  innocence 
and  righteousness,  which  is  hardly  derived  from  experience. 
Indeed,  to  speak  truly,  the  confidence  of  the  social  reformer 
on  the  lines  of  secularism  is  more  strictly  a  'venture  of 
faith'  than  the  pious  hope  of  the  Christian.  There  is 
abundant  proof  of  the  actual  benefit  of  such  belief  as  can 
convince  the  poor  of  a  future  blessedness,  as  can  give  peace 
and  resignation  to  the  most  afflicted  lot.  If  the  claim  of 
modern  'democracy,'  which  as  yet  has  never  entered  into 
its  promised  rights,  is  to  immediacy  of  enjoyment,  surely 
the  happiness  of  the  converted  (subjective  though  no  doubt 
it  must  be  to  the  end,  like  all  happiness)  is  the  most 
'immediate'  and  undeferred  return  for  a  single  act  of  faith 
and  surrender !  One  alarming  symptom  to-day  is  this :  the 
faith  which  alone  supports  any  genuine  social  reform,  which 
with  generous  lavishness  would  give  all  privilege  before 
exacting  any  duty,  is  growing  disheartened.  A  calm  diagnosis 
of  the  altered  temper  of  philanthropy  to-day  and  half  a 
century  back  is  much  to  be  desired.  Mr.  Hobhouse,  in  an 
interesting  volume  on  '  Democracy  and  Reaction,'  has  traced 
with  much  care  and  feeling  the  decay  of  the  old  illusions  and 
prepossessions  on  which  the  earlier  and  more  hopeful  move- 
ment was  borne  along.  We  might  indeed  smile  at  the 
inconsistency  of  the  pioneers  who  called  on  men  to  sacrifice 
their  lives  freely  for  a  cause,  for  an  abstraction,  the  freedom 
of  Greece  or  the  union  of  the  Italian  provinces,  while  they 
were  perhaps  at  the  time  accusing  the  Church  of  postponing 
indefinitely  man's  happiness  beyond  the  grave.  Sometimes 
they  dwelt  on   the  immediate  conquest  of    the   'Land  of 


288  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

Promise,'  and  displayed  the  heavy  clusters  of  Eshcol,  which 
told  of  speedy  enjoyment  there.  But  at  others,  they  were 
forced  to  address  themselves  to  the  spirit  of  self-denial,  service 
in  a  losing  cause  (as  it  must  often  seem),  an  appeal  to 
impulsive  and  uncalculating  human  nature,  which  seldom 
fails ;  they  begged  the  disappointed  claimants  to  wander 
without  repining  in  the  wilderness,  that  their  children  might 
one  day  enter  Canaan.  We  may  seriously  doubt  if  such  an 
appeal  will  be  so  successful  to-day.  The  entire  movement 
in  early  times  was  animated  by  vague  beliefs  in  human  nature, 
which,  closely  examined,  turn  out  to  be  inseparably  united 
with  respect  for  the  individual,  his  character,  his  chances,  and 
his  immortality.  The  curious  sophistry  which  consoles  the 
creature  of  a  brief  hour  for  its  pain  and  failure,  by  pointing 
out  the  benefit  of  his  example  on  a  posterity  yet  unborn,  was 
not  then  in  fashion.  Thinkers  had  not  fully  confronted  the 
implications  of  '  thanatism ' :  we  have  certainly  discovered 
that  '  indefinite  postponement  of  pleasure '  to  a  remote  con- 
tingency (for  our  tenure  of  this  planet  is  precarious  no 
less  for  the  race  than  the  individual)  is  no  doctrine  that  can 
be  openly  taught.  Let  no  one  mistake  my  meaning:  the 
unreasoned  surrenders  of  the  unselfish,  for  children,  friends, 
or  country,  will  still  take  place.  Scientific  arguments  against 
survival  could  neither  wholly  eradicate  the  belief  in  our 
continued  life  nor  extirpate  that  involuntary  sympathy  and 
respect  for  others  which,  if  carefully  analysed,  must  carry 
with  it  the  belief  in  the  personal  units,  their  wholesome 
discipline  and  perfectibility.  But  this  doctrine  is  not  one 
which  calm  Reason  can  allow  to  be  preached  or  inculcated ; 
we  may  (and  probably  shall)  practise  unselfishness ;  we  could 
not  possibly  defend  or  explain  it. 

§  6.  It  was  the  fashion  to  point  scornfully  at  the  ignorance 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  at  the  subservience  to  a  narrow  and 
interested  governing  class,  at  their  easy  belief  in  the  marvellous 
— in  a  word,  at  the  *  Ages  of  Faith.'  In  the  Lectures  we  have 
raised  the  question,  whether  *  Faith '  is  quite  the  right  word 
to  employ  with  regard  to  a  loyal  acceptance  of  a  Church 
whose  corporate  reason  analysed  and  demonstrated  the 
^credenda,'  whose  practical  authority,  with  or  without  State - 
aid,  could  punish  offenders  and  coerce  the  recalcitrant.     In 


AGES  OF  FAITH  289 

the  sense  of  vague  and  wistful  moral  surrender  to  the  absent, 
as  the  Ideal,  ws  cpw/xevoi/,  it  is  certainly  not  applicable.  It 
implies  merely  the  yielding  to  the  opinion  of  experts  in  matters 
where  they  and  they  alone  were  qualified  to  judge ;  the  truly 

*  democratic'  character  of  the  hierarchy,  recruited  from  every 
class  in  society,  providing  an  open  ladder  to  the  highest  office, 
prevented  any  complaint  of  the  secrecy  or  imposture  of  an 
intriguing  oligarchy.  The  Church  was  well  able  to  perform 
her  promise ;  to  rebuke  kings  and  rescue  the  oppressed.  It 
is  the  Protestant  systems  which  have  encouraged  men  to  this 
unlimited  deferment;  and  it  is,  in  consequence,  difficult  for 
them  to  have  parley  with  Socialism,  —  always,  in  its  very 
essence  and  under  the  most  clever  disguises,  the  gospel  of 

*  the  Immediate.'  The  *  Ages  of  Faith '  in  reality  began  with 
the  Reformation.  The  emphasis  on  belief  has  been  ever 
since  growing  more  intense.  The  discord  of  faith  and  facts — 
facts  political,  social,  domestic,  scientific — has  never  before 
been  so  acute.  And  yet  the  world  walks  still,  or  tries  to  walk, 
by  faith  and  not  by  sight.  There  is  still  a  pitiful  and  half- 
ashamed  reluctance  to  follow  Nature's  easy  method  with  regard 
to  the  incompetent,  still  a  shrinking  to  end  incurable  disease. 
There  is  still  a  desire  to  give  opportunities  and  field  for 
training  to  that  freewill,  which  we  in  our  scientific  moments 
pronounce  to  be  a  dangerous  illusion.  There  is  still  a 
deference  to  individual  character,  which  is  inexplicable  except 
on  the  assumption  that  something  precious  and  dear  to 
Almighty  Power  lies  behind  the  worn  and  soiled  vesture. 
There  are  still  some  who  would  resent  a  mechanically  virtuous 
Republic,  not  so  much  because  of  the  unnatural  load  on  a 
disinterested  ruling  caste,  half- monk,  half -soldier,  which  is 
its  indispensable  condition;  but  because  (for  reasons  it  is 
hard  to  explain  without  becoming  vague  and  'sentimental') 
such  animal  comfort  and  unreflecting  ease  seem  to  entail  the 
atrophy  of  the  personal.  But  examine  what  you  will  of  the 
tenets  of  reforming  propaganda,  in  one  and  all  you  will  find 
the  scientific  view  of  man  and  society  conveniently  forgotten 
and   obscured,  whenever  that   comes   into  conflict  with  the 

*  dim  mythologic  postulates '  of  man's  freedom  and  worth, — 
which  must  still  animate  the  eloquence  or  the  appeal  of 
secularism.     And  this  invocation  of  Faith  to  help  us,  where 

19 


290  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

the  lesson  of  facts  seems  to  run  counter  to  our  moral  instincts, 
must  become  increasingly  prevalent  in  an  age  where  the 
discord  between  real  and  ideal  is  so  emphatic.  But  it  seems 
clear  that  it  is  answered  in  Christianity  alone;  and  that, 
therefore,  in  the  Church  alone  rest  the  hopes  of  Society. 


B 


On  the  Modern  Separation  of  Classes  and 
Interests 

§  I.  No  common  currency  in  the  various  departments  of  exact 
knowledge  :  the  '  Universe  '  :  Hartmann,  last  of  the  Great  Systems  : 
specialism  as  much  a  feature  of  practical  life  as  of  scientific  research  : 
conflicting  interests  and  party  warfare  :  distance  and  abstraction  of 
the  unity  supposed  to  weld  all  together  :  the  feudal  polity  in  some 
respects  a  revival  of  the  best  features  in  the  Hellenic  city-State  :  Manor 
a  State  in  miniature. 

§  2.  Underneath  the  forcible  unity  of  the  modern  State,  hating 
gradation  and  loving  uniformity,  seethes  a  conflict  of  interests  :  arti- 
ficial language  of  political  debate  fosters  the  belief  in  class- animosity  : 
decay  of  easy  intercourse  :  public  language  infinitely  below  ordinary 
practice. 

§  3.  The  Churches ;  harmony  through  division  :  religious  differ- 
ences dwelt  on  to  exclusion  of  points  of  agreement :  concerted  action 
impossible  :  idiosyncrasy  and  the  private  conscience  and  private 
interpretation  :  sense  of  unity  and  common  aim  disappearing  :  absence 
of  dogmatism,  nevertheless,  and  of  sharp  distinction,  no  sign  of 
weariness,  but  of  uncertainty  :  it  is  tolerant  and  modest  rather  than 
sceptical  or  indifferent :  the  Churches  cannot  at  present  heal  the  breaches 
in  the  social  order. 

§  4.  Contract,  the  new  method,  cannot  admit  '  unselfishness  *  ;  the 
new  State  will  know  no  such  term  :  future  of  Constitutionalism,  interests 
and  classes  alternately  represented :  the  Gospel  more  unanimous 
in  spite  of  the  schisms  of  believers  :  social  problems  to-day  :  this 
severance  of  interests  only  to  be  reconciled  by  the  principle  of  the  Gospel, 

§  I.  Mention  has  more  than  once  been  made  of  the 
specialism  of  science,  in  virtue  of  which  each  group  of 
seekers  follows  its  own  especial  line,  uses  its  peculiar  methods 
and  dialect,  disappears  down  its  own  tunnel  out  of  sight 
of  the  rest.     There  exists  no  central  and  paramount  court  to 


MODERN  SEPARATISM  291 

unify  these  divers  results  and  exchange  their  contributions 
into  a  uniform  currency.  Every  harmony  is  an  act  of 
(private)  faith  or  hypothesis.  The  very  term  'universe'  is 
heavily  loaded  with  assumption,  probably  for  ever  outside 
the  range  of  strict  verification.  As  a  fact,  few  attempt  this 
unification,  for  the  day  of  Great  Systems  is  over;  or  if 
attempted,  it  is  in  a  semi-religious  spirit  and  for  purposes  of 
the  practical  life.  Of  this  there  is  a  remarkable  instance  in 
Hartmann,  perhaps  the  last  of  the  great  Absolutists  who  recall 
the  spirit  and  tone  of  the  seventeenth  century, — in  its  curious 
anomaly,  acute  self-consciousness  and  stern  reaction  from 
individualism  towards  incomprehensible  power.  His  '  unifica- 
tion,' purely  a  matter  of  temperament  guiding  unawares  his 
exhaustive  studies,  is  clearly  religious;  he  finds  a  substitute 
for  the  Christian  Deity  which  seems  worthy  of  his  devotion ; 
and  (significant  enough  of  the  modern  spirit)  is  not  ashamed 
in  a  philosophic  treatise  to  exhort  men  to  be  up  and  doing 
*  the  Lord's  work  in  the  Lord's  vineyard.'  It  is  doubtful  if 
this  attitude  could  be  revived.  Save  for  religion  and  a  small 
metaphysical  school,  which  trembles  uncertain  between  logic 
and  sentiment,  such  unity  is  neither  needed  nor  pursued. 
Convention  (a  mere  working  compromise)  supports  us  when 
we  come  back  to  real  life  from  our  special  studies,  with  their 
academic  detachment,  reserve,  and  singleness  and  narrowness 
of  purpose.  The  complex  of  life  we  leave  to  be  put  together 
by  wiser  heads  than  our  own,  and  we  trust  and  lean  on  the 
past,  to  an  extent  undreamt  of  by  many  who  fancy  themselves 
the  boldest  revolutionaries  and  iconoclasts.  And  in  this  very 
social  life  we  find,  when  we  arrive,  the  same  specialism,  the 
same  antithesis  and  antagonism.  Interests  and  classes  have 
drifted  apart ;  and  it  is  a  truism  to-day  that  Lord  Beaconsfield's 
ideal  conception  of  a  Lower  House  is  almost  realised,  because 
strictly  it  is  not  places  that  are  represented,  but  the  conflicting 
interests  of  classes.  And  the  tendency  must  increase.  To 
be  outspoken  in  this  matter  is  to  court  the  taunt  of  reaction 
and  mediaevalism  ;  yet  the  fact  is  surely  patent  enough.  The 
unity,  which  is  supposed  to  weld  and  harmonise,  is  too  distant, 
too  cloudy  and  imaginary,  to  have  any  real  effect.  The  State 
is  a  mere  abstraction,  or  a  hybrid  monster  with  claims  to 
omnipotence.     Feudalism,  which  has  sometimes  been  called 


292    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

the  antithesis  of  the  Greek  polity,  was  in  fact  largely  its  revival. 
It  was  founded  on  a  belief  in  restricting  the  horizon  of  the 
State  to  visible  people,  palpable  interests,  to  local  issues. 
On  the  estate,  it  is  true  that  country  pursuits  took  the  place 
of  municipal  or  Imperial  sympathies;  but  this  had  already 
occurred  in  the  last  century  of  the  Western  Empire, — certainly 
in  France  in  the  case  of  ApoUinaris  Sidonius  and  his  fellows. 
The  centre  of  gravity  shifts  indeed  from  town  to  village  (as 
to-day  from  village  to  town),  but  the  general  spirit  is  much 
the  same, — a  half-fictitious  sense  of  kinship,  reciprocal  duties, 
daily  and  hourly  intercourse,  often  rough  and  brutal  it  may 
be,  but  no  more  systematic  than  cruel  conduct  among  slave- 
owners in  more  modern  times,  no  more  deliberate  and 
authorised  than  ill-treatment  of  household  dependants  in 
Greece  and  Rome.  There  was  no  need  to  go  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  domain  for  justice,  for  religious  comfort,  for 
military  protection ;  the  Manor  was  a  State  in  miniature. 

§  2.  It  is  far  from  my  purpose  to  hold  up  for  unquestioning 
approval  the  mediaeval  ideal.  For  whatever  its  perfection  in 
theory,  it  was  seldom  realised.  And  the  casual  recognition 
of  an  ideal  which  no  one  pretends  to  put  in  practice  may  bring 
comfort  to  sufferers  in  hopes  of  amendment,  but  makes  the 
privileged  callous  or  ironical.  But  to  any  one  who  detects 
how  much  the  social  movement  of  last  century  owed  to  the 
Christian-mediaeval,  how  little  to  the  classical-antique,  ideal, 
a  survey  of  the  principles,  a  respectful  attention  to  the 
maxims,  on  which  the  former  depended,  will  not  seem 
amiss.  The  intermittent  suggestions  of  federalism,  provincial 
autonomy,  'Home  rule,'  local  government, — the  protests  of 
anti-Imperialists, —  remind  one  unmistakably  to-day  of  the 
gathering  reaction  against  a  worship  of  abstractions  which, 
however  noble  in  theory,  means  as  a  rule  the  success  of  a 
clique.  Centralised  government  regards  the  mass  of  citizens 
as  units ;  it  opposes  (along  with  a  measure  of  public  opinion) 
a  dull  resistance  to  the  claims  of  privilege  or  exemption ;  and 
law  is  intolerant  of  the  exception.  But  underneath  the  artificial 
harmony  thus  created  seethes  a  chaos  of  conflicting  interests. 
Many  evils  of  modern  life  are  due  to  the  want  of  easy  inter- 
course between  the  various  ranks  of  the  community,  that 
snapping  of  purely  personal  bonds  of  goodwill  to  give  place 


MODERN  SEPARATISM  293 

to  mere  ties  of  contract,  which  is  possibly  inseparable  from 
the  present  state  of  social  culture.  Classes  rarely  meet  to 
discuss  unless  they  are  beforehand  determined  to  disagree. 
It  might  well  have  been  expected  that  a  larger  sympathy,  a 
better  understanding,  an  easier  tolerance  would  be  secured 
by  political  reform  (regarded  as  the  first  duty  of  a  long- 
trusted  hereditary  caste),  of  systematic  education  (as  one 
chief  function  at  least  of  a  serious  State).  But  (as  we  pointed 
out  in  the  case  of  the  Enlightenment)  this  sympathy  was  nearly 
always  wasted  upon  imaginary  figures ;  and  in  spite  of  the 
patient  induction  of  parallel  science,  thinkers  were  reluctant 
to  learn  from  actual  and  unprejudiced  experience.  It  is 
possible  that  the  average  man  discounts  at  once  the  fictitious 
indignation  and  menace  of  political  speech.  To  listen  to  such 
debate  is  to  believe  that  society  is  composed  only  of  hostile 
groups.  We  have  before  noticed  the  strangeness  of  the 
situation ;  our  public  language  is  at  times  infinitely  below  the 
level  of  our  common  practice.  The  good  understanding  in 
our  own  country  between  high  and  low,  rich  and  poor,  is  the 
wonder  of  those  who  take  the  trouble  to  penetrate  past  the 
bristling  sophisms  or  vulgarities  of  politicians  to  our  inner 
life  and  ordinary  routine ;  it  would  be  impossible  to  suspect  its 
existence  if  they  relied  on  purely  political  aspects  for  gauging 
the  temper  of  a  great  nation. 

§  3.  If,  while  the  Republic  is  too  masterful  to  secure  real 
loyalty,  and  cannot  bind  its  citizens  together  in  common  aim 
and  resolve,  the  Church  might  be  supposed  to  provide  a 
rallying  point,  the  situation  to-day  must  cause  us  serious 
concern.  The  Christian  message  is  a  principle  of  harmony, 
perhaps  only  this  because  also  of  division,  —  "I  came  not 
to  send  peace,  but  a  sword."  As  against  the  secular  power, 
the  *  world,'  the  Church  must  assume  a  neutral  attitude,  and 
at  times  a  posture  of  challenge  and  defiance.  We  hear  on 
all  sides  complaints  that  in  the  subdivisions  of  the  Church  so 
much  more  stress  is  laid  on  points  of  difference  than  on 
broad  principles  of  agreement,  that  we  cannot  achieve  con- 
certed and  unanimous  action.  It  is  perhaps  a  trite  criticism 
to  note,  as  the  distinguishing  mark  of  latter-day  thought,  just 
this  emphasis  on  idiosyncrasy.  It  is  the  special  note  that  is 
commended,  not  the  typical:  and  although  we  are  glad  to 


294  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

be  free  from  the  vague  eighteenth-century  veneration  for  the 
type,  yet  modem  experience  has  forced  the  varied  and  multiple 
so  persistently  into  the  sphere  of  vision  and  interest,  that  in 
many  things  the  sense  of  unity  has  disappeared.  It  is  always 
a  sign  of  earnestness  and  conviction  to  overvalue  detail,  even 
though  it  may  be  a  narrow  and  mistaken  honesty.  Ages  of 
great  unities,  of  wider  embracing  generalisations,  are  ages 
of  weariness  or  impatience, — the  fatigue  of  the  old  (as  in 
the  political  movement  towards  '  Imperialism '  at  the  Christian 
era),  or  the  immature  achievement  which  youth  boasts  as 
final  (as  in  the  hurried  and  inconsequential  ideal  structure 
of  Mediaeval  monarchy).  An  age  which  thinks  more  deeply 
and  more  freely,  on  which  perhaps  presses  too  great  a  load 
of  unrelated  and  indigestible  facts,  cannot  afford  an  early 
unification.  In  place  of  great  ideas,  it  must  busy  itself  in 
concrete  detail,  without  comprehensive  formula.  Its  tolerance 
is  merely  an  armed  and  suspicious  neutrality;  a  sign  of 
mutual  agreement  to  surrender  something,  so  that  each 
institution  may  mark  out  its  own  distinct  'sphere  of  influ- 
ence,' may  'cultivate  its  own  garden  in  peace.'  It  is  a 
common  error  to  mistake  compromise  or  toleration  for 
acquiescence  or  fatigue;  it  is  neither;  it  is  due  to  a  scepti- 
cism which,  outside  the  limits  of  its  own  experience,  knows 
no  certainty.  It  is  not  abstentionist,  but  often  vigorous 
enough  within  these  boundaries ;  but  outside  is  the  Unknown, 
or  the  purely  conventional,  useful  but  relative  and  provisional. 
The  brisk  (and  to  us  arrogant)  dogma  of  a  summary  division 
into  elect  and  lost  gives  way  to  Universalism,  with  its  'un- 
covenanted  mercies';  'other  sheep  which  are  not  of  this 
fold ' ;  its  consummation  when  '  God  shall  be  all  in  all' 
It  is  not  that  men  have  grown  less  serious,  but  that  they 
have  grown  less  certain.  But  this  less  defiant  spirit  has  not 
led  to  any  real  harmony  or  power  of  co-operation :  the 
differences  are  still  there,  even  if  we  are  not  always  talking 
of  them.  We  must  not  expect  the  Church,  as  it  is  to-day, 
'the  company  of  all  faithful  people,'  to  be  of  immediate 
avail  or  sovereign  influence  in  healing  the  breaches  of  our 
social  order.  Yet  it  is  difficult  to  see  any  other  aid  forth- 
coming. Contract,  with  its  calculation  and  its  egoism,  its 
suspicious  emphasis  on   rights,  is  now  the  rule  in  political 


MODERN  SEPARATISM  295 

and  social  life.  A  monarch  is  a  covenanted  'First  Citizen' 
with  certain  ceremonious  and  social  duties ;  his  place  is  con- 
ditional on  their  punctual  fulfilment;  to  the  great  detriment 
of  the  State,  the  parental  has  in  most  countries  given  way  to 
a  military  or  contractual  type. 

§  4.  Contract,  unless  it  be  lazy  or  pusillanimous,  cannot 
in  reason  surrender  its  rights;  that  is  why  the  hopes  of 
unlimited  unselfishness  are  doomed  to  be  so  rudely  upset 
in  the  new  State.  There  is  no  longer  ground  left  for  unanimous 
appeal.  The  future  of  constitutional  States  seems  to  be  the 
successive  prominence  of  certain  classes  and  interests  in  an 
unvarying  round.  Each  in  turn  must  receive  attention,  and, 
it  is  to  be  feared,  at  the  expense  of  its  predecessor,  at  the 
costly  sacrifice  of  continuity,  of  the  general  welfare.  Much 
honest  zeal  must  evaporate  in  an  atmosphere  of  distrust: 
changes  of  government  will  imply  the  capture  of  the  central 
citadel  by  some  new  faction ;  and  each  is  under  bond  to  effect 
at  all  hazard  some  definite  and  instantaneous  improvement 
in  the  condition  of  a  certain  part  of  the  community.  In 
nations,  where  no  violent  ebullition  need  be  expected,  the 
work  of  the  State  in  domestic  matters  must  be  like  the  web 
of  Penelope.  Whatever  be  the  bitterness  of  religious  rivalry, 
we  are  more  likely  to  find  a  remedy  in  the  principles  of  the 
Gospel,  the  broad  basis  of  doctrine,  than  in  any  appeal  which 
a  future  commonwealth  could  make.  The  exigencies  of 
modern  life,  which  all  appear  to  regret,  which  no  one  can 
remedy,  force  the  workers  to  live  aloof  from  other  classes, — 
to  inhabit  ergastula  where  we  find  little  or  no  trace  of  the 
comfort,  amenities,  and  scientific  adjustment  which  is  the  chief 
boast  of  the  last  age.  It  is  only  Christianity,  or  that  sympathy 
which  is  morally  if  not  doctrinally  Christian,  that  can  compel 
the  happier  lot  to  take  thought  for  the  less  privileged.  When 
all  advance  is  measured  by  a  material  standard,  the  central 
authority  might  readily  be  charged  with  the  duty  of  rearing 
and  educating  perfect  and  uniform  citizens  for  the  great  con- 
flict of  competitive  States.  But  the  enterprise  of  individuals 
and  of  groups  which  will  not  resign  the  care  of  the  poor  to 
mechanism,  is  a  sign  that  the  Christian  ideal  is  still  powerful. 
No  one  can  review  without  some  alarm  the  symptoms  of 
modern  social  inequalities ;  the  growing  sense  of  detachment 


296    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

and  irresponsibility  in  rank  and  riches,  due  (quite  logically) 
to  the  admission  of  all  classes  to  political  influence,  the  relief 
and  emancipation  of  a  once  serious  governing  class ;  the 
condition  of  the  toiler;  commercial  dishonesty;  dwindling 
interest  in  the  home;  multiplication  confined  to  one  end  of 
the  social  scale.  The  Church  in  such  an  age  has  before  it 
a  new  and  important  work.  It  must  unite  on  those  essential 
doctrines  which  cannot  be  surrendered,  —  the  divinity  of 
Christ,  the  brotherhood  of  man  in  and  through  Him,  the 
priceless  worth  and  dignity  of  each  individual  soul.  In 
faithful  maintenance  of  these  it  runs  counter,  like  every 
Idealist  or  Secularist  project  of  reform,  to  current  experience ; 
for  all  action  must  rise  in  faith ;  and  faith  in  human  nature — 
the  real  individual,  not  the  imaginary  and  abstract  type  or 
race — is  the  most  difficult  of  all.  The  Church  need  not 
once  more  be  clothed  with  worldly  power ;  nor  need  it,  on  the 
other  hand,  refuse  willing  co-operation  in  all  social  schemes. 
It  must  boldly  face  the  ignorance  and  want  of  sympathy 
which  separate  classes  even  in  days  of  a  common  and  uniform 
education.  It  will  recognise  here  the  greatest  hindrance  to 
the  Kingdom  of  God ;  and  its  mission  will  be  to  preach  the 
simple  message,  "God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world 
unto  Himself";  the  parts  not  divided  and  hostile,  but  com- 
ponents of  one  body,  which,  through  the  varied  gift  and 
duties  of  each,  becomes  not  a  dead  abstraction  but  a  living 
whole. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  VI— A 

On  the  Prevailing  Sense  of  Helplessness  before  Irre- 
sistible Forces,  or,  on  Pessimism,  its  Origin  and 
Significance 

§  I.  Relativity  of  all  knowledge  :  early  Greek  Humanism  :  the 
Self  as  '  measure  of  all  things  '  :  attempted  application  of  human 
attribute  and  sympathies  to  the  Cosmos  :  new  conception  of '  Divine '  ; 
certain  and  calculable  :  defecation  in  the  humanistic  period  ;  sym- 
pathy, goodness,  intelligence  {Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle) :  in  subjective 
schools  anthropomorphism  vanishes. 

§  2.  Exceptional  genius  rarely  mirrors  its  own  age  :  life  and  thought 
of  a  people  in  letters  and  drama  :  science  and  philosophy  deal  always 
directly  with  law  and  uniformity ;  adjustment  to  individual  use 
quite  secondary  :  literature  always  with  the  unit  and  his  conflict  with 
the  outward  order  :  the  hero  or  the  protagonist  is  always  Athanasius 
contra  mundum  :  natural  bias  towards  belief  in  reason  and  righteous- 
ness of  things  :  confusion  of  intelligibility  and  goodness,  of  ignorance 
and  vice  :  man  finds  his  own  true  being  at  the  heart  of  things. 

§  3.  Greek  tragedy  opens  with  the  legend  of  Prometheus  ;  repre- 
senting Humanism  and  the  protest  against  arbitrary  force  :  unavailing 
attempts  at  a  Theodicy  :  the  poetic  mythology,  out  of  relation  to  human 
interest  and  moral  demand,  is  swept  away  :  humiliating  new  reading 
of  '  man  measure  of  all  things  '  :  gradual  restriction  of  sphere  ;  from 
the  conflict  of  East  and  West,  the  drama  of  a  new  dynasty  in  heaven,  to 
domestic  intrigue  and  liaison  :  failure  of  Reason  to  force  its  moral 
and  intellectual  canons  on  the  world. 

§  4.  Doubt  if  '  righteousness '  receives  recognition  in  the  Universe  : 
fallacy  of  the  maxim  '  Virtue  its  own  reward ' :  serious  artists  in  our 
own  days  interest  by  representing  victims  in  the  clutch  of  destiny,  and 
deny  any  correspondence  to  the  moral  aim  of  man  :  this  the  origin  of 
Pessimism. 

§  5.  Pessimism,  often  merely  temperamental  :  right  to  agency  and 
service  balked  by  denial  of  humanistic  aim  in  the  Universe  outside  : 
theoretic  pessimism  often  united  with  cheerfulness  and  endeavour  : 
pessimism  of  Cicero  :  art  and  philosophy  seek  to  procure  relief  by 
detaching  the  attention  from  preoccupied  care  of  the  personal :  its 
failure  shown  in  the  revived  Gnosticism  of  later  years. 

297 


298    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

§  6.  Such  call  to  illogical  self-sacYifice  as  is  heard  in  some  quarters 
to-day  of  no  avail :  Epicureanism  is  the  natural  corollary  of  an  aim- 
less world  :  an  accidental  world  leaves  room  for  the  play  of  human  free- 
will :  added  zest  in  insecurity  of  tenure  and  occasion  :  it  is  Stoicism 
that  leads  to  pessimism  :  nor  would  proof  of  accident  at  once  overthrow 
moral  sanctions  :  even  the  discovery  of  pure  mechanism  might  leave  a 
scope  for  venture  :  in  eighteenth  century  a  sense  of  freedom  succeeded 
to  '  predestination '  and  caste-system. 

§  7.  Buoyant  feeling  of  Self-sufficiency  ;  very  speedily  lost :  what 
Epicurus  feared  has  now  come  about  :  impersonal  fate  succeeds  to 
personal  will :  a  loop-hole  still  left  in  his  system  :  this  now  disproved  : 
heavy  air  of  finality  in  Roman  Empire  :  pessimism  always  issues 
from  subservience  to  unknown  law  :  demand  for  personal  worth  and 
freedom :  danger  to  civilised  States,  apart  from  Christian  belief. 

§  I.  When  the  intelligence  of  the  Greeks  rose  from  the 
partial  gods  of  city,  grove,  and  hearth,  to  the  conception  of  a 
single  overruling  force,  the  discovery  filled  them  at  first  with 
an  enthusiasm  which  afterwards  cooled,  giving  way  to  mistrust 
and  lethargy.  What  man  seeks  in  his  curiosity  and  pursuit  of 
truth  (which  we  willingly  concede  as  a  primitive  and  abiding 
impulse)  is  not  the  '  thing-in-itself,'  but  its  relation  to  ourselves. 
"  We  may  here,"  says  Gomperz  of  an  early  physician,  "  almost 
detect  the  insight,  or  at  least  the  conjecture,  that  all  our  know- 
ledge about  Nature  is  relative ;  and  that  the  true  goal  of  human 
inquiry  is  not  what  Nature  is  in  herself,  but  what  she  is  in 
relation  to  man's  perceptive  faculties."  This  commonplace  is 
constantly  forgotten  or  overlooked  to-day.  The  final  unity, 
which  we  pretend  to  grasp,  is  a  venture  of  logic,  of  faith,  or  of 
devotion ;  and  very  few,  increasingly  few  in  modern  times,  ever 
arrive  at  a  point  in  the  ascent  in  which  the  universe  can  be  so 
regarded,  'as  if  from  a  conning-tower.'  It  is  by  no  means  true 
that  when  practical  needs  are  satisfied  the  keen  pursuit  of 
knowledge  relaxes ;  but  the  knowledge  sought  is  always  partial 
and  always  relative, — cutting  off,  with  conscious  arbitrariness,  a 
piece  of  the  knowable  for  inquiry, — quite  contented  if  the 
results  can  be  summed  up  in  terms  intelligible  to  man  and 
his  aim,  easily  verified  by  test  and  experiment,  and  laying  no 
claim  to  any  infallible  comprehension.  And  in  Greece,  as 
Humanism  spread  under  the  gradual  influence  of  Sophistry, 
all  investigation  was  perpetually  being  recalled  to  the  question : 
How  does  this  stand  in  relation  to  me,  to  my  intelligence, 


PESSIMISM  299 

and  to  my  practical  needs  ?  As  beyond  human  ken,  use,  and 
interest,  many  avenues  of  exploration  were  closed;  attention 
was  centred  on  the  self, — and  this  became  the  *  measure  of  all 
things.'  This  standard  was  applied  to  a  new  unity,  which 
loomed  large  as  the  coherent  cosmos,  held  together  by  a 
principle  of  life,  harmony,  and  continuity,  to  which,  somewhat 
inaptly,  the  term  'Divine'  was  applied.  For  *  Divine'  had 
before  meant  little  else  than  unaccountable,  the  outcome  of 
arbitrary  caprice,  which,  even  after  the  patient  and  devout 
study  of  experts,  could  never  be  really  certified.  The  new 
conception  of  '  Divine '  meant,  on  the  contrary,  reasonable  or 
consistent, — a  force  governed  by  its  own  eternal  laws,  which 
search  could  detect  and  verify  once  for  all.  The  notion  of 
*  reason '  or  purpose  and  constant  aim  in  the  recognised  flux  of 
existence  was  interpreted  at  Athens  in  the  humanistic  or  strictly 
teleologic  form  ;  Heraclitus  and  the  Stoics,  however,  understood 
by  it  method  and  regularity  alone,  but  not  relative  convenience 
to  man.  Man,  for  himself,  might  be  the  'measure  of  all 
things,'  implying  a  limit  of  his  powers,  not  any  proud  claim  to 
sovereignty.  Socrates  had  definitely  claimed  the  Divine  power 
as  human  in  the  best  sense,  as  accountable,  as  affording  not 
merely  tidings  of  special  vocation  by  accredited  channels,  but 
also  secret  personal  intimations.  His  theology  was  in  the 
highest  degree  relative  and  humanistic;  he  bowed  to  no 
universal  order,  but  found  the  best  vindication,  the  most 
excellent  virtue  of  deity,  in  sympathy  with  individuals.  But 
the  steps  in  the  decay  of  this  naive  confidence  (which  alone  is 
true  religious  feeling)  can  be  easily  traced :  Plato  in  his  *  Idea 
of  Good,'  preserves  the  notion  of  teleology,  while  disengaging 
it  from  embarrassing  connection  with  persons ;  Aristotle  seats 
it  as  pure  Intelligence  in  inaccessible  majesty ;  the  later  schools 
(as  we  have  so  often  seen)  relieved  it  of  the  last  vestige  of 
anthropomorphism. 

§  2.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  great  writers  of  any  age  can  be 
accepted  as  the  best  exponents  of  its  spirit  and  temper. 
Reaction  is  in  most,  it  may  be  said,  the  chief  incentive ;  even 
for  the  satirist  facit  indignatio  versum^  the  insolence  of  the 
rich,  the  crass  tolerance  of  the  vulgar.  We  complain,  in  the 
dull  recitals  of  courts  and  camps,  that  we  learn  little  in  histories 
of  a  people's  genuine  life  and  feelings.     The  same  doubt 


300  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

perplexes  us  in  the  study  of  exceptional  genius,  which  belongs 
to  no  age  or  race,  but  to  all  time.  Romance  and  the  stage 
provide,  perhaps,  safer  guidance,  though  even  here  caution  is 
needed :  at  least  we  are  admitted,  with  these  imaginary  and 
heroic  figures,  to  a  more  intimate  communion  with  individual 
humanity;  we  stand  nearer  to  the  throng  and  its  sympathies 
than  in  the  impersonal  studies  of  the  philosopher  or  the  man 
of  science.  Now,  if  we  consult  Greek  letters,  poetry  and  the 
drama,  we  shall  find  our  previous  estimate  of  the  course  of 
philosophic  religion  receiving  clear  and  additional  support. 
While  science  and  reflection  calmly  examine  law,  only  later 
and  with  a  little  reluctance  adjusting  it  to  use  and  individual 
difference,  letters,  strictly  speaking,  are  engaged  always  with  the 
strife,  the  conflict  of  the  unit  and  the  universal  order.  The 
interest  is  confessedly  purely  personal;  it  is  a  growth,  or  a 
discipline  of  character,  of  the  spontaneous ;  and  the  scenery  of 
social  or  natural  law  is  around  it,  rigid  and  unfeeling.  But  the 
sympathy  of  the  audience  or  the  reader  is  invariably  engaged 
for  the  hero,  against  the  blind  force  of  circumstance  or  the 
misunderstanding  of  his  fellows.  The  protagonist  is  always  in 
a  sense  Athanasius  contra  mundum,  the  exception  protesting, 
often  fruitlessly,  against  the  rule.  "  Man  is  no  idle  spectator 
of  the  conflict  of  the  forces  of  right  and  wrong;  Browning 
never  loses  the  individual  in  the  throng,  or  sinks  him  into  his 
age  or  race.  Although  the  poet  ever  bears  within  him  the 
certainty  of  victory  for  the  good,  he  calls  his  fellows  to  the 
fight  as  if  the  fate  of  all  hung  on  the  valour  of  each.  The 
struggle  is  always  personal,  individual,  like  the  duels  of  the 
Homeric  heroes.  It  is  under  the  guise  of  warfare  that  morality 
always  presents  itself  to  Browning."  So  writes  Henry  Jones  in 
his  valuable  work  on  "  Browning  as  a  philosophical  and  religious 
teacher."  Now  the  study  of  Greek  drama  and  history  during 
that  notable  century  of  enlightenment,  convinces  us  of  a  deeply 
critical  and  self-conscious  attitude,  even  outside  strict  philo- 
sophic inquiry;  and  of  a  firm  resolve  to  bring  everything  in 
heaven  and  earth  to  book  before  the  tribunal  of  reason,  a 
faculty  in  which  were  blended  logical  accuracy  and  the  moral 
standard  of  conscience.  That  which  we  to-day  keep  apart  with 
eff'ort  was  then  indistinguishably  confused, — clear  thought  and 
moral  judgment,  scientific  inaccuracy  and  conscious  falsehood. 


PESSIMISM  301 

These  canons,  each  sovereign  in  its  own  special  sphere,  were 
indiscriminately,  or  even  alternately,  applied.  We  are  never 
sure  if  the  matter  under  discussion  is  to  be  treated  by  proof  or 
by  appeal;  if  we  are  taking  part  in  an  unbiassed  debate,  or 
listening  to  a  sermon.  But  philosophy  surrenders  at  once  her 
proud  claim  of  arbiter  if  she  becomes  a  partizan.  Moral 
appeal  is  no  part  of  philosophy  at  all ;  the  pure  spirit  is  content 
with  viewing  (not  realising)  truth, — ov^ev  rj  Atavota  Kivet, — 
it  has  no  wish  to  consummate  that  which  is  already  perfect 
But  where  the  demarcation  of  provinces  was  not  precise,  the 
ordinary  consciousness,  half  guided  by  tradition,  half  by  the 
keen  and  critical  education  then  prevalent,  summoned  every- 
thing to  the  bar  to  hear  a  verdict  which  was  sometimes  logical, 
but  more  often  strongly  tinged  or  distorted  by  moral  and 
humanistic  prejudice.  It  was  a  natural  bias  to  attempt  to  find 
reason  and  righteousness  in  things.  Man  was  somehow  con- 
scious that  here  lay  his  own  true  being ;  and  he  persisted  in 
the  conviction  that  these  constituted  the  essence,  the  core  of 
things. 

§  3.  Greek  Tragedy,  as  well  as  Hesiod's  poems,  may  be  said 
to  open  with  a  Theogony,  rather  with  the  succession  of  a  new 
dynasty ;  it  closes  with  its  overthrow.  Prometheus  represents 
humanism  and  reason  against  arbitrary  force;  thus  early  is 
heard  the  note  of  protest  against  the  autocracy.  Man  appears 
later  on  the  scene,  to  become  the  plaything  of  destiny;  he 
struggles  in  the  toils  like  Laocoon.  Sometimes  this  eternal 
order  is  identified  with  the  will  of  Zeus ;  the  human  sympathy 
which  bewailed  the  fatal  death  of  a  favourite  in  the  Homeric 
poems  has  given  way  to  the  passionless  resolve  of  an  absolute 
sovereign;  he  is  *no  respecter  of  persons.'  Sometimes  the 
moral  sense  claims  him  as  its  champion  and  representative, 
as  establishing  the  broad  principles  of  truth,  kindliness,  and 
justice,  which  overrule  the  partial  and  selfish  enactments  of 
tyrants.  Sometimes  the  Pantheon  breaks  into  feud;  and 
human  passions,  transfigured  as  objective  deities,  bring  men 
to  ruin.  At  others,  a  family  curse  or  doom  sweeps  away  the 
innocent  with  the  guilty,  under  the  sanction  of  the  highest 
powers.  And,  once  again,  we  see  the  lesson  of  mediocrity  and 
modesty  and  relativity  inculcated,  xPV  <i>pov€lv  Tav^/awirtva,  the 
retort  of  common  sense  to  Aristotle's  advice,  1<I»  ocrov  cVScx^rat 


302  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

&OavaTL^€iv ;  because  the  unseen  forces  are  strong,  incalculable 
and  vindictive.  And  by  the  time  of  the  Middle  comedy,  at  least, 
all  this  mythology  vanishes  in  legend  and  allegory,  or  perhaps 
lingers  in  unreasoning  rite  and  custom.  But  the  lesson  re- 
mained: the  disappointment  of  the  humanistic  hopes,  that 
sought  to  find  in  man  the  centre  of  the  universe,  the  *  measure 
of  all  things.'  This  indeed  he  was,  but  in  a  humiliating  sense. 
The  littleness  and  the  vanity  of  man  is  a  constant  theme  or 
bitter  complaint  on  the  earlier  stage.  While  Greek  Tragedy 
seems  to  ask,  using  the  familiar  illustration  of  heroic  myth. 
What  was  his  relation  to  the  Divine  world  ?  comedy  at  the  same 
time  sought  to  discover  the  relation  to  the  political^  and  later 
drama  to  the  social  world.  Each  time  the  sphere  is  found  to 
be  more  restricted,  the  hopes  more  modest,  the  interests  more 
trivial.  In  all  the  greater  emotions  and  severer  crises  of  life, 
man  is  portrayed  as  overmastered  by  a  'power  not  himself,' 
which  cannot  be  said  in  any  known  sense  '  to  make  for  righteous- 
ness.' It  is  largely  this  personal  sense  of  the  emptiness  of 
endeavour,  in  matters  moral  or  political,  that  led  to  the  attitude 
of  indifference  and  aloofness,  which  Subjectivism  perforce 
adopted  in  the  post- Aristotelian  Schools.  In  spite  of  the  empty 
and  verbal  protests  of  the  Porch,  this  was  the  strongest  testi- 
mony to  the  failure  of  Reason  (a  moral  as  well  as  a  logical 
intelligence)  to  force  experience  into  conformity  to  its  canons. 

§  4.  The  main  problem,  into  which  subside  at  length  all 
other  conundrums  on  the  world's  origin  and  meaning,  is  this : 
Does  'righteousness,'  as  we  generally  understand  and  try  to 
practise,  receive  any  recognition  in  the  scheme  of  things  ?  or  is 
the  discrepance  between  merit  and  receipt  so  glaring,  that  one 
party  has  to  defer  all  reconciliation  beyond  the  grave,  another 
to  deny  the  correspondence  of  man's  aims  and  the  plan  of  the 
universe,  a  third  to  explain  the  seeming  injustice  of  circum- 
stance and  lot  by  the  doctrine  of  re-birth,  of  discipline  perhaps 
unending,  of  individuality  wider  than  the  compass  of  a  single 
life  ?  It  is  of  no  avail  to  revive  the  lofty  heroics  of  Averroes  and 
Pomponatius  (indeed,  of  all  modern  secularism  unaware  of  its 
parentage),  that  the  truly  virtuous  look  not  to  empty  external 
or  deferred  reward,  but  find  in  the  practice  and  enjoyment  of 
virtue  an  all-sufficing  recompense.  This  is  of  course  both 
profoundly  true  and  profoundly  false:  true,  as  representing 


PESSIMISM  303 

in  fact  the  doggedness  of  moral  impulse,  when  every  moral 
sanction  has  gone  except  the  vague  and  too  often  misleading 
axiom  the  *  duty '  of  doing  *  good ' :  but  also  false,  inasmuch  as, 
in  theory,  rational  justification  is  wholly  wanting  ;  and  we  must 
again  repeat,  we  go  to  philosophers  for  clear  thinking  and  not 
for  parenetic  unction.  It  behoves  the  apostle  of  religious 
negation  and  moral  certitude  to  examine  with  a  little  more 
courage  the  content  of  his  positive  convictions.  It  is  quite  as 
likely  that  the  practical  rule  of  behaviour,  the  sensitive  scruples 
which  form  a  birthright  and  heritage  he  cannot  abdicate,  is  as 
erroneous  as  the  world-theory  which  grew  up  alongside  or 
perhaps  dictated  it.  Few  have  had  this  boldness,  because  in 
spite  of  the  possible  absurdity  or  anomaly  of  its  claims,  this 
conventional  code  is  founded  on  tried  usefulness ;  it  is  a  work- 
ing scheme  which  satisfies  the  unthinking ;  it  has  on  its  side 
the  immeasurable  influence  or  dead  weight  of  conservatism, 
which  is  the  inherent  strength  (or  weakness)  of  every  demo- 
cratic society.  Now,  in  modern  delineations'  of  character  set 
loose  in  the  heyday  of  youth  to  make  its  way  in  the  world,  to 
confront  and  surmount  obstacles,  and,  it  may  well  be,  *  find ' 
itself  through  self-loss,  the  more  serious  artists  do  not  maintain 
the  correspondence  of  man's  aspirations  or  deserts  with  the 
nature  of  things.  The  mere  good-humoured  mirror  held  up 
to  life,  as  in  the  Attic  later  comedy,  with  its  humanistic  triumph 
of  virtue  and  a  happy  ending,  is  out  of  fashion.  The  individual, 
to  excite  a  jaded  attention,  must  be  shown  in  the  grip  of  fatal 
circumstance,  of  ignorance,  of  misery,  of  an  overpowering  and 
sinister  craving,  of  inherited  taint  and  predisposition.  Every- 
where, man,  the  agent,  is  in  the  clutch  of  incalculable  powers, 
and  is  neither  the  '  captain  of  his  soul '  nor  master  of  his  destiny. 
It  is  curious  to  see  the  conviction  of  the  author  succumb  to 
popular  insistence ;  the  true  reading  involves  no  such  righteous 
requital,  but  the  audience  must  not  be  sent  away  in  unavailing 
tears  and  uncomfortable  protest.  Sometimes,  to  a  drama  or 
to  a  tale  there  are  two  endings :  in  one,  the  instinctive  sense 
of  justice  is  satisfied ;  in  the  other,  the  author's  sense  of  truth 
and  experience.  We  cannot  restore  the  relation  of  things  to 
that  which  we  feel  to  be  our  legitimate  demand.  We  need 
look  no  farther  than  this  for  the  origin  and  meaning  of 
Pessimism. 


304    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

§  5.  Pessimism  involves  a  large  inroad  of  emotion,  moral  or 
aesthetic,  not  perhaps  wholly  justifiable,  into  the  passionless 
atmosphere  where  Thought  lives.  We  must  exclude  as  wholly 
due  to  personal  temperament,  or  to  settled  national  character, 
or  to  some  acute  crisis  in  the  life  of  men  or  States,  that  vague 
despondency  or  savage  disapproval  of  the  present  world,  which 
paints  '  grey  in  grey '  over  the  Orient,  and  since  the  failure  of 
the  'age  of  Reason'  has  exerted  undoubted  charm  over  some 
elect  Western  minds.  A  general  diagnosis,  a  semi-philosophic 
motive  at  least  must  be  given ;  for  the  philosopher  has  neither 
time  nor  inclination  to, investigate  every  form  of  psychological 
morbidness,  or  discuss  with  sympathy  the  whole  series  of 
untoward  events  which  have  depressed  the  temperament  once 
so  buoyant.  Now  the  natural  impulse  of  man  is  to  be  an  agent, 
to  take  a  risk,  and  to  serve  a  cause.  Whenever  law,  natural 
order,  scientific  theory,  arbitrary  or  over-parental  authority, 
seem  to  deny  scope  to  this  primitive  desire  of  man  to  be  him- 
self,— and  in  so  being  to  become  something  more, — there  rises 
the  temper  of  indifference  or  mutiny  which  we  call  Pessimism. 
It  is  a  despondent  state  of  mind  rather  than  a  clear  system  of 
thought ;  yet  it  can  be  well  maintained  as  a  strict  philosophy 
by  those  who  in  practical  life  are  energetic,  kindly,  and  cheerful. 
And  these  deserve  a  more  attentive  hearing  than  those  for 
whose  acrimony  we  can  so  easily  account.  Social  life  fills 
us  with  a  sense  of  real  happenings,  urgent  duties  for  State  or 
family,  progress  and  happy  achievement  awaiting  its  pioneers 
on  quite  definite  lines.  But  the  philosophic  habit,  which  we 
only  assume  on  solemn  occasion,  must  disparage  this  turmoil 
of  an  ant-heap,  and  either  point  to  a  serener  realm,  or  deny 
the  sense  or  use  of  the  whole  vain  phantasmagoria.  "  Jam  ipsa 
terra  ita  mihi  parva  visa  est,  ut  me  imperii  nostri,  quo  quasi 
punctum  ejus  attingimus,  pseniteret."  Confidence  in  action 
and  virtue  must  indeed  have  been  shaken  when  a  Roman  and 
a  statesman  could  write  thus;  when,  lost  in  the  abysses  of 
time  and  space,  the  '  Great  Year,'  and  the  solar  system,  he  had 
to  reinforce  the  civic  instinct  by  a  supernatural  sanction, — 
somehow  insisting  against  hope  that  Heaven  must  recognise 
and  reward  the  virtue  of  the  honest  man  of  affairs.  Effort 
seems  worth  while,  so  long  as  we  are  engrossed  in  the  active 
life,  and  can  respect  or  acknowledge  the  worth  of  persons.     But 


PESSIMISM  305 

art  and  thought,  unlike  religion,  deal  callously  with  individuals 
as  mere  representatives  of  an  eternal  type.  How  clear  and 
detached  Hegel  keeps  his  mind  from  contact  with  those 
transcendental  questions  in  which  the  hope  and  welfare  of  the 
unit  is  bound  up  !  But  the  high  level  of  aesthetic  contempla- 
tion (in  which  Schopenhauer  finds  relief,  like  a  rested  Ixion) 
or  of  abstract  and  comprehensive  formula  (winning  always  new 
triumphs  as  it  is  applied  on  every  side  to  phenomena,  with 
signal  success),  cannot  be  maintained.  Practical  philosophy 
became,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  pessimistic 
or  dualistic,  save  only  where  it  was  more  than  half  emotional 
and  religious ;  and  found  in  a  form  of  Spinozism  just  that 
medley  of  fact  and  sentiment  which  satisfies  some  elect  and 
exceptional  minds.  For  in  a  universe  of  such  immensity,  of 
such  strict  natural  concatenation,  what  is  the  use  of  pain  and 
labour,  or  the  reality  of  endeavour  ?  It  must  be  urged  again 
and  again  that  endeavour  must  have  a  purely  personal  subjective 
end,  though  we  know  that  is  not  the  incentive  of  action.  It 
cannot  be  the  service  exacted  from  the  miserable  serf  by  some 
ambitious  pyramid-builder.  And  the  present  age,  which  does 
not  know  (outside  the  immediate  and  limited  opportunism  of 
politics)  whither  it  is  tending  or  what  is  the  goal  in  view, 
cannot  (when  it  begins  to  reflect)  either  justify  or  explain 
this  restless  striving  after  nothing;  or  this  unreasoning 
defiance  of  what  is  bound  in  any  case  to  come;  or  this 
acute  sense  or  illusion  of  free  action  which  only  conceals  a 
race-impulse  or  an  ancestral  scruple,  unhappily  indurated  and 
painful. 

§  6.  It  is  indeed  by  a  creditable  misuse  of  logic  that  such 
students  as  Hartmann  and  Nietzsche  enjoin  on  us  the  sacred 
mission  of  furthering  the  cause.  To  intensify  thought  till 
life  becomes  to  all  men  unbearable,  or  to  work  for  the  coming 
of  a  superior  type  to  crush  us,  is  much  like  Mr.  Spencer's 
dream  of  a  moralised  State.  If  one  of  these  three  contin- 
gencies are  fated,  it  will  arrive  whether  we  assist  or  not ;  and 
in  the  meantime  sober  modesty  recalls  us  to  our  *  garden,'  to 
the  enjoyment  of  such  pleasures  as  are  attainable,  knowing 
that  both  fretful  repining  and  ambitious  idealism  are  equally 
hurtful  to  the  only  happiness  within  our  reach.  This  is  the 
temper  of  that  Epicurean  system  which   under  the   Roman 


3o6  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

Empire  forms  such  a  pleasing  contrast  to  the  bravado  of  the 
Stoics  and  the  restless  servility  or  greed  of  the  average  citizen- 
client.  Yet,  like  them,  it  has  within  it  no  spring  of  progress,  no 
motive  of  advance ;  and  reflective  schemes  of  the  universe  seem 
to  waver  between  two  equally  impossible  ideals — self-centred 
ease,  not  wholly  satisfied  with  its  creed,  and  often  in  practice 
rising  far  above  it ;  and  a  demand  for  abnegation,  which  lacks 
all  support  in  reason  or  common  sense.  But  in  a  purely 
accidental  world  (as  the  School  of  Epicurus  conceived  it) 
there  was  room  for  human  freedom  ;  and  there  was  an  added 
charm  of  fearful  joy,  in  snatching  such  brief  pleasures  as  blind 
occasion  offered.  It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that 
pure  mechanism  would  at  once  overthrow  the  ordinary  rule  of 
conduct.  Man  is  proud  to  discover  that  even  in  a  chance 
medley,  the  kvk€idv  or  'witch's  cauldron'  of  AureUus,  he 
can  formulate  and  maintain  his  own  laws.  It  is  true  that, 
in  strict  proof  of  the  brute  and  soulless  force  behind  things, 
Herbert  Spencer's  dread  of  a  '  groping  protoplasm,'  the  pure 
relativity  (if  not  folly)  of  all  ethical  distinctions  would  be  placed 
beyond  controversy.  There  would  be  no  more  talk  of  '  eternal 
and  immutable  morality ' ;  ethical  science  would  sink  in  theory 
to  mere  statistics,  and  in  practice  to  sheer  opportunism.  But, 
as  every  philosopher  shows,  the  instincts  of  man  are  stronger 
than  his  reason;  calculated  and  formal  belief  has  as  little  effect 
on  the  individual  life  as  the  purpose  and  eloquence  of  states- 
men over  the  control  of  national  forces.  It  is  an  error  for  the 
theological  advocate  to  press  too  violently  the  instantaneous  out- 
come of  religious  unbelief.  If  its  tenets  still  left  to  man  even 
a  modified  power  over  the  cosmic  process  and  a  sense  of  a 
genuine  initiative,  the  life-impulse  as  well  as  the  pleasure  of 
venture  and  hazard,  of  social  intercourse  and  family  ties,  might 
largely  restore  the  shaken  confidence  of  mankind.  To  those 
who,  like  Epicurus,  Lucretius,  and  the  antitheists  of  the 
eighteenth-century  campaign,  see  in  God  only  an  unfeeling 
autocrat  and  in  religious  ethics  serfdom,  not  willing  service, 
such  discovery  of  the  pure  mechanism  at  the  root  of  things 
might  indeed  almost  revive  a  semi-religious  temper,  a  sincere 
devotion  to  Nature,  who  for  a  time  seemed  so  kindly.  A 
feeling  of  freedom,  of  personal  and  individual  life,  not  lost 
but  embraced  in  the  whole,  might  very  well  succeed  to  the 


PESSIMISM  307 

sense  of  arbitrary  predestination,  of  the  close  confinement 
of  a  rigid  caste-system.  And  indeed  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  protests  against  religions  have  often  been  guided  by  a 
moral  and  religious  motive.  The  first  impulse  of  the  newly 
enfranchised  is  to  fancy  himself  self-sufficient,  his  deliverance 
complete. 

§  7.  How  evanescent  is  this  exalted  feeling,  nay,  how  strictly 
confined  to  a  narrow  and  poetic  circle,  or  to  brief  moments  of 
rapture  in  ordinary  life,  the  records  of  the  last  century  may  tell. 
For  that  which  Epicurus  feared  most  of  all  has  come  about : 
the  absolute  power  of  a  personal  will,  always  supposed  to  be 
amenable  to  entreaty,  is  succeeded  by  the  fatalism  of  an  un- 
intelligent order.  In  this,  this  most  human  of  scientists,  most 
scientific  of  humanists,  shows,  as  usual,  a  profound  knowledge 
of  average  human  nature.  Give  but  a  loophole  of  uncertainty 
in  the  fiat  of  destiny,  and  man  will  strive  with  courage  all  the 
more  eager  because  the  chances  are  so  slender ;  he  is  always 
on  the  weaker  side.  But  convince  him  that  neither  the 
outward  sequence  nor  his  own  inherited  character  may  be 
changed,  and  there  is  an  end  not  only  to  religious  hope  and 
to  moral  appeal,  but  to  the  simple  confidence  and  zest  on  which 
life  depends.  The  Epicurean  system  recognised  and  to  a  certain 
extent  ennobled  the  individual ;  this  phenomenon  the  agnostic 
absolutism  of  the  Stoics  disparaged  or  denied.  Neither  could 
stand  as  principles  of  missionary  ardour,  of  social  sympathy  or 
progress ;  for  the  air  of  finality  hung  heavily  about  the  institu- 
tions of  the  Roman  Empire.  But  as  a  temper  with  which  to 
confront  the  blows  of  life,  the  former  is  incomparably  the  saner. 
It  is  far  better  to  believe  there  is  no  purpose  in  the  world, 
except  the  purpose  man  creates  for  himself,  his  own  little  ends 
which  in  his  tiny  span  he  follows  with  wise  folly  as  if  eternal, 
than  to  bow  servilely  to  one  with  which  we  have  nothing  in 
common.  It  is  this  sense  of  useless  effort  against  forces,  social 
and  personal,  which  are  beyond  our  control  that  leads  to 
the  subdued  and  diffident  attitude  assumed  to-day  (it  is  idle 
to  deny)  by  reflective  thought.  The  strange  issue  of  many 
movements,  undertaken  for  the  benefit  of  men ;  the  collapse 
of  confidence  in  the  idealist  or  constitutional  methods  which 
sought  to  reclaim  the  criminal  and  aid  the  distressed  by  asking 
them   to  share  our   burdens  while  we  retain  our  privilege; 


3o8    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

the  creeping  lethargy  which  must  follow  a  serious  and  convinced 
acceptance  of  scientific  truth ;  the  acknowledged  impotence  of 
mere  training  or  secular  education  to  instil  a  principle  other 
than  that  of  temperate  and  cautious  self-interest  —  these 
symptoms  or  results  of  a  free  development  in  a  single  direction 
have  made  it  clear  that  Science,  supreme  in  its  own  sphere, 
can  give  no  guidance  in  another.  In  thought,  as  in  morals,  as 
in  politics,  the  demand  of  men  is  for  freedom  and  for  worth, 
not  the  substitution  of  one  form  of  coercion  for  another.  It 
is  worthless  to  escape  personal  caprice,  as  Epicurus  saw, 
merely  to  serve  the  impersonal  law  of  a  State,  the  '  will  of 
majorities,'  the  relentless  physical  order.  Wherever  we  look 
there  is  the  same  claim  put  forward  for  personal  life  here  and 
now,  with  no  indefinite  postponement  to  a  cloudy  future. 
Unless  Christianity  guide  the  new  movement  and  display  the 
true  implications  of  the  great  doctrine,  '  man  as  an  end,  not  as 
a  means,'  the  most  civilised  countries  may  find  themselves  con- 
fronted with  anarchy. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  Vll-A 

On  the  Anti-Moralism  of  Idealism  and"  of  Science 

§  I.  Tone  of  recent  literature,  a  reaction  from  the  average  to  the 
exceptional :  modest  and  rudimentary  problems  in  a  *  democratic  ' 
age  :  imagination  turns  from  the  civic  and  commonplace  routine  : 
private  world  of  the  man  of  genius,  as  an  asylum. 

§  2.  Price  hitherto  paid  by  the  community  for  aoer -refinement  of  a 
class  :  in  Greece,  in  Italy,  in  France  :  all  the  personalist  schools  in 
later  Greece  disdain  the  domestic  and  social  side  :  wisdom  cannot 
recognise  the  fnality  of  the  moral  life  :  simple  demands  of  the  people 
to-day  not  compatible  with  the  leisured  ease  of  idleness  or  abstention. 

§  3.  Danger  of  '  privilege  '  in  detachment  {whether  of  rank,  wealth, 
commerce,  or  artistic  taste)  :  Christian  principles  alone  can  unite  : 
what  is  lost  in  contracting  days  :  most  religious  and  speculative  feel- 
ings tend  to  acknowledge  a  higher  realm :  the  hopes  and  beliefs  on 
which  the  sense  of  unity  depends  cannot  be  communicated  by 
argument. 

§  4.  We  have  to  reckon  not  with  distant  unities  but  with  urgent 
differences,  not  with  law  so  much  as  with  exception  {casuistry)  : 
ultimate  unities  negligible  :  gradual  abandonment  oj  anthropomorphic 
hopes  :  can  man  gain  knowledge  of  the  Universe  by  surrendering  his 
differentia  ?  The  moral  venture  of  man  :  nothing  gained  by  deny- 
ing moral  interest  to  God :  no  halting-place  between  historic  Christianity 
and  denial  of  all  meaning  and  worth  in  the  world. 

§  I.  There  have  never  been  wanting  in  any  condition  of 
civilised  society  thinkers  who  disputed  the  finality  or  the 
sufficingness  of  the  moral  life — the  life  of  custom,  routine, 
conformity,  enlivened  only  by  the  rare  moments  when  the 
individual,  left  to  himself,  had  to  make  a  genuine  choice. 
We  need  not  again  traverse  the  ground  covered  by  the  essays 
on  the  Intellectualism  of  the  Hellenic  or  the  Middle  Ages, 
on  the  pretended  division  of  religion  into  popular  and  esoteric. 
But  we  have  once  more  to  urge  the  claims  of  social  life,  and 
the  necessity  of  its  alliance  with  the  Christian  hypothesis  of 

809 


3IO    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

the  world  and  man.  It  must  be  clear  to  most  students  of  the 
currents  and  tendencies  of  our  development,  that  the  tone  of 
our  letters  and  thought  marks  a  very  distinct  reaction  from 
the  average  towards  the  exceptional.  It  is  inevitable  that 
a  *  democratic'  age  should  ascertain  and  satisfy  very  rudi- 
mentary demands ;  its  claims  are  honest  and  blunt,  and  con- 
cern the  simplest  things  in  life — bread,  wages,  housing,  and 
the  relations  between  money,  skill,  and  work.  For  this  reason 
writers  turn  from  the  commonplace  of  the  present  to  an 
ideal  world,  and  are  no  doubt  rightly  apprehensive  of  the 
future  of  their  favourite  studies.  Letters,  except  in  the 
complacence  of  '  Augustan'  ages,  are  seldom  without  this  note 
of  criticism  and  reaction  ;  nay,  under  Augustus  himself  was 
not  the  eulogy  of  order,  peace,  and  comfort  often  broken  by 
an  involuntary  homage  to  the  simplicity  of  the  past,  a  com- 
plaint that  even  under  the  most  benevolent  system  the  real 
golden  age  of  innocence  could  never  return?  Notes  of 
disclaimer  mark  all  the  most  intimate  passages  of  poetic  self- 
revelation.  It  needs  the  heroic  abnegation  of  Plato's  guardians 
to  mingle  contemplative  exercise  and  routine  ;  for  Philo's  Moses, 
the  cares  of  rule  and  the  joys  of  Divine  intercourse ;  and  it  was 
long  a  tradition,  in  the  making  of  a  Christian  bishop  as  in  the 
winning  of  a  savage  bride,  that  a  due  show  of  reluctance  and 
resistance  was  indispensable.  The  absence  of  fixed  principles 
in  statecraft;  the  avowed  meanness  of  motive  in  a  modern 
State,  tolerable  only  in  its  vast  scale ;  the  continual  thwarting 
of  the  calm  march  of  theoretic  justice  or  progress  by  dull  and 
prejudiced  individuals,  which  is  inseparable  from  a  true 
'  democratic '  regimen — all  this  has  driven  the  idealist  and 
the  poet,  no  less  than  the  man  of  science,  into  a  private  world, 
into  that  specialism  which  we  have  noted  as  a  chief  feature 
of  this  present  age.  The  learned  and  the  gifted  are  more 
exclusive,  and  find  it  hard,  however  necessary,  to  *  condescend 
to  men  of  low  estate.'  We  have  remarked  the  abdication  of 
practical  philosophy  :  we  may  easily  trace  the  growing  interest 
in  the  romantic,  the  exceptional,  the  marvellous,  a  harmless 
diversion  from  the  prose  of  actual  life ;  and  we  cannot  wonder 
if,  above  the  virtues  of  respectable  honesty  and  decent  life, 
sensitive  natures  seek  a  more  satisfying  ideal,  aesthetic,  religious, 
or  contemplative. 


ANTI-MORALISM  311 

§  2.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  the  vaunted  refinement  of  an 
aristocratic  culture  must  be  based  on  something  akin  to 
serfdom.  The  general  community  pays  a  high  price  for  the 
unselfish  pleasure  of  contemplating  a  leisured  class,  living 
in  artificial  detachment  from  the  sordid  details  of  everyday. 
The  triumphs  of  Greek  intellect,  or  French  urbanity,  nay, 
of  Italian  art,  were  dearly  purchased,  and  the  common  life 
suffered.  Writers  have  been  at  some  pains  to  relieve  Aristotle 
of  the  stigma  of  academic  aloofness,  to  insist  that  his  practical 
teaching  implies  the  due  balance  of  social  concern  and 
isolated  study.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  whatever  his  own 
personal  'golden  mean,'  it  is  impossible  to  acquit  him 
of  providing  later  abstention,  with  all  its  rules,  contrasts, 
and  prejudices.  Sages  were  anxious  to  find  a  '  world-virtue ' 
superior  to  the  regulated  and  narrowly  watched  behaviour  of 
a  small  town;  and  they  discovered  it  in  surrender  to  the 
unknown.  The  '  world-virtue,'  as  well  as  the  due  comprehen- 
sion of  the  'world-system,'  was  out  of  the  reach  of  ordinary 
men  entangled  in  the  cares  of  family  and  social  life.  It  is 
not  without  significance  that  the  first  step  of  Sakhya-Mouni 
on  the  road  towards  perfection  is  the  desertion  of  wife  and 
child.  The  later  Cynics  deUberately  dissuade  from  the  snares 
of  the  wedded  state ;  and  the  Stoics,  in  their  endless  and 
unprofitable  debates  *  whether  the  wise  man  should  marry, 
should  take  part  in  public  affairs,'  showed  how  little  they 
were  disposed  to  recognise  the  ultimate  validity  of  the  civic 
norm.  Thought,  no  less  than  art,  is  in  the  strict  sense 
unpopular,  just  because  both  are  impersonal.  And  to-day 
the  conflict  of  the  two  phases  of  thought  is  becoming  acute 
because  the  half-formed  aims  of  the  common  people,  their 
inarticulate  aspirations,  the  more  definite  demands  of  their 
spokesmen,  are  not  compatible  with  the  survival  of  leisure  and 
privilege,  of  detachment  and  unconcern.  It  is  not  idle  luxury 
alone  that  demands  the  sacrifice  of  the  weaker. 

§  3.  It  is  noticed  that  the  rift  between  social  interests  and 
leisured  'privilege'  (by  which  term  no  one,  I  feel  sure,  will 
suspect  me  of  restricting  the  use  to  dignity  of  birth  or  wealth) 
is  not  so  conspicuous  in  this  country  as  elsewhere.  An  idle 
aristocracy  is  as  dangerous  as  a  proletariat  out  of  work ;  and 
it  is  immaterial  whether  this  superior  class  represents  obsolete 


312    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

tradition,  commercial  success,  or  aesthetic  seclusion.  It  is  one 
of  the  chief  defects  of  our  present  condition  that,  with  all  the 
genuine  effort  after  fellow-feeling  and  a  revival  of  the  concerns 
of  the  common  life,  there  is,  with  some  notable  exceptions,  so 
little  endeavour  to  penetrate  the  ignorance  and  reserve  which 
hides  class  from  class.  Now  it  would  appear  that  the  Gospel 
alone  can  overpower  the  very  natural  sense  of  superiority  and 

*  exclude  boasting.*  It  lays  its  chief  emphasis  upon  something 
which  is  universal  and  within  reach  of  all,  define  it  as  you 
will.  Its  ideal  of  society  is  nearer  to  Communism  than  to 
that  form  of  polity  under  which  we  live  to-day — with  its  misty 
unities  looming  outside  the  range  of  clear  vision  and  its 
severance  of  parts  and  interests  and  classes.  And  by  Com- 
munism there  is  no  reason  to  restrict  the  definition  to  a 
common  use  of  goods.  This  may  or  may  not  be  a  necessary 
side  of  applied  Christian  principle ;  but  it  at  least  entails  a 
community  of  sentiment,  of  worship,  of  hope.  It  is  quite  easy 
to  imagine  a  more  real  unanimity  between  a  Christian  slave- 
owner and  his  so-called  '  chattels,'  between  a  landlord  and  his 

*  serfs,'  than  between  employer  and  employed  in  days  of  pure  con- 
tracting independence.  About  the  theory  or  strict  legitimacy  of 
their  position  they  perhaps  were  not  concerned;  a  sense  of 
responsibility,  a  Christian  kindliness  of  heart,  a  firm  belief 
in  that  ultimate  equality  and  brotherhood  of  man  which  to  us 
to-day  is  such  a  dim  and  unsubstantial  hope,  stood  them  in 
good  stead,  and  in  practice  supplied  the  want  of  logic  in  their 
theory.  Beside  sympathetic  personal  intercourse,  system  and 
symmetry  are  insignificant ;  the  purely  rational  is  a  valuable 
negative  and  corrective,  but  it  can  neither  start  nor  consum- 
mate. The  belief  in  a  higher  realm,  which  is  above  the 
petty  distinctions  and  blunt  antithesis  of  the  moral  life,  is  a 
common  feature  of  most  religions  and  of  all  devotional  '  philo- 
sophy.' Plato's  ideal  guardian  is  always  passing  and  repassing 
up  or  down  a  Jacob's  ladder,  from  the  one  to  the  many,  from 
the  many  to  the  one.  But  he  has  an  evident  reluctance  to 
assume  office  and  the  care  of  the  concrete,  to  descend  again 
into  the  gloom  of  the  cave.  One  who  has  enjoyed  a  vision  of 
unity  and  harmony  (by  what  strange  means  possible,  let  us 
consult  Professor  James  on  '  religious  experience ')  is  amazed 
^t  the  obtrusiveness  of  the  exceptional.     Moral  *  science '  is  tp 


ANTI-MORALISM  313 

such  highly  unsatisfactory,  because  it  is  the  perpetual  discovery 
of  fresh  cases  which  cannot  be  brought  under  a  single  rule, 
which  must  remain  a  Maw  to  themselves.'  Preciseness  in 
principle  is  unimportant ;  might  it  not  even  be  called  perilous  ? 
for  did  not  the  Stoics  in  theory  at  least  condone  any  evasion 
of  conventional  habit  or  violation  of  law  if  performed  from 
serious  and  consistent  motive  ?  And  principle,  just  when  it  is 
clarified  into  a  truism  and  lifted  to  the  highest  rank  of  un- 
questioned axiom,  seems  to  lose  its  effectiveness.  Unless 
one  already  felt  the  claims  of  *  duty '  and  loved  one's  fellow, 
no  Kantian  canon  would  carry  conviction.  The  place  of 
philosophy  is,  like  Science,  strictly  speaking,  descriptive  and 
neither  normative  nor  heuristic.  The  principles  or  prejudices 
which  do  even  to-day  largely  sway  social  language,  if  not  social 
practice,  are  hopes  and  beliefs  undaunted  by  the  flat  contra- 
diction or  indifference  of  facts.  The  facts  of  life  and  nature 
are  near  us — these  vague  hopes  and  (perhaps)  unfounded 
convictions — these  too  are  near  us ;  but  the  mysterious  unities 
of  Absolute,  or  Natural  Order,  or  Commonwealth  are  very  far 
off.  It  is  the  pure  subjectivity  of  the  mystic  that  makes  him  a 
poor  judge  of  another  man's  soul  and  circumstances.  The 
verdict  of  the  experts  may  constitute  a  standard  of  aesthetic 
taste,  but  its  validity  does  not  extend  beyond  its  own  depart- 
ment, and  art  is  not  life.  Any  instantaneous  or  laboured  con- 
viction of  the  unity  of  this  universe,  to  us  so  complex  and  full 
of  harsh  antithesis,  is  a  comforting  and  personal  belief  as  well 
as  being  an  indispensable  initial  axiom.  But  *  coercive  argu- 
ment '  hovers  round  unavailing ;  and  only  soul  speaks  to  its  like 
and  communicates  its  spiritual  message  as  by  an  electric  shock. 
§  4.  And  we  have  to  reckon  with  what  is  near  and  urgent ; 
a  distant  unity  void  and  colourless,  because  universal,  is  at 
once  negligible.  When  the  claims  of  mediaeval  sovereignty 
were  highest,  its  actual  prerogative  was  lowest.  When  the 
Creator  entered  through  modern  philosophy,  into  an  undis- 
puted sway  over  all  things  in  virtue  of  His  eternal  law,  interest 
was  at  once  transferred  to  the  still  precarious  realm  of  the 
play  of  phenomena.  When  certain  dogmas  of  the  Reformed 
Churches  surrendered  to  incalculable  grace  (whether  as  per- 
sonal faith  or  as  the  fiat  of  authority)  the  chief  place  in 
soteriology,  the  matter  was  over  and  done  with  once  for  all  ^ 


314  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

and  men,  satisfied  that  there  can  be  but  one  uniform  force  in 
the  world,  turned  to  the  nearer  illusion  of  difference.  We  can 
elsewhere  trace  how  this  ultimately  real  lost  by  degrees  all 
resemblance  and  affinity  to  man,  all  sympathies  with  his 
demands.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  esoteric 
doctrine  of  pure  science  must  be  a  mere  repetition  of  Par- 
menides  :  '  what  is,  is.'  Anything  beyond  the  category  of  bare 
existence  is  in  some  sense  anthropomorphic,  animistic  super- 
stition. The  pessimism  of  a  limited  but  profound  and  sincere 
school  is  a  last  word  of  anthropocentric  prejudice.  Such,  too, 
is  the  confidence  of  an  indeterminate  religious  idealism.  So 
impossible  is  it  for  man  to  cease  to  translate  into  language 
of  the  objective  his  own  wants  and  aspirations,  to  cease  to 
demand  imperiously  a  countenance,  somehow  human,  behind 
the  veil.  But  can  this  resemblance  and  kinship  be  traced  any 
the  better  if  we  surrender  our  strictly  human  differentia? 
Man,  we  have  seen  throughout,  must  serve  a  cause  not  yet  won, 
with  which  he  will  identify  himself  without  care  or  fear  ot 
the  issue.  And  moral  action  is  this  unselfish  venture;  it  is 
idle  to  call  it  submission  to  known  laws.  Have  we  gained 
anything  if  we  give  up  that  quality  in  God  which  puts  Him  in 
sympathy  with  our  struggles?  Do  we  win  anything  for  the 
better  understanding  of  the  Divine  Nature  if  we  depict  life  as 
a  vast  and  cruel  amphitheatre,  and  human  endeavour  as  a 
gladiatorial  show,  with  a  foreordained  or  meaningless  end? 
If  we  supplant  Christ,  partner  and  captain  in  the  fight  as  well 
as  rewarder  at  the  last,  by  some  vague  and  unconscious 
benevolence,  some  central  point  of  vision,  where  good  and 
evil,  pain  and  joy  indistinctly  blend,  have  we  given  a  better,  a 
more  '  rational '  interpretation  of  the  world  ?  We  have  given 
one,  indeed,  which  is  known  by  experience  to  have  brought 
comfort  to  the  heart  and  to  the  head  of  exceptional  natures, 
but  which  helps  only  the  elect,  who  are  predisposed  to  receive 
such  comfort.  The  Christian  appeal  is  universal,  and  cannot 
permit  the  sovereign  claims  of  the  good  will,  of  the  pure  heart, 
of  the  unselfish  endeavour  for  a  beloved  Master,  to  evaporate 
in  the  thin  air  of  Nihilism.  And  yet  the  whole  tendency  of 
independent  theology  has  shown  that  there  is  no  safe  halting- 
place  between  historic  Christianity  and  the  denial  of  all  mean- 
ing and  all  worth  to  the  world. 


TELEOLOGICAL  LANGUAGE  315 


B 


On  the  Survival  of  Teleologic  Language  apart 
FROM  THE  Conception  of  Intelligible  End 

§  I.  '  Purpose  '  in  the  world — in  part  a  humanistic  conceit  :  ir- 
resistible impulse  of  man  to  relate  all  knowledge  and  fact  to  himself: 
the  use  of  '  law  '  for  physical  sequence  :  introduces  teleological  senti- 
ment and  quiets  doubt. 

§  2.  This  retention  of  purposive  language  due  largely  to  modern 
specialism  :  attempt  of  Science  to  mingle  pious  exhortation  and  strict 
proof:  instinctive  and  hereditary  prejudices  at  variance  with  the 
lessons  of  their  physical  studies :  Nietzsche  alone  is  logical :  Christi- 
anity itself  is  less  dualistic  :  but  this  compromise  marks  transition  : 
compromise  and  disinclination  to  face  real  issues,  a  feature  of  our 
age  :  dilemma  of  '  world-purpose  '  :  meaning  of  purpose — scheme 
in  which  those  asked  to  suffer  and  work  may  also  share  :  no  other 
sense  allowable. 

§  3.  How  is  this  purpose  intelligible  ?  postulates  of  Humanism  : 
days  of  vague  terror  before  unknown  are  passing  :  we  cannot  prove 
the  truth  of  the  Christian  doctrine  :  no  study  of  nature  or  history 
can  assure  us  of  any  unfailing  premium  set  on  righteousness  :  other 
religions  start  with  unity  and  perfection,  and  only  condescend  to 
the  distressed  manifold  :  Christianity  alone  starts  at  the  lowest  level, 
with  the  spectacle  of  a  suffering  criminal :  it  alone  builds  on  facts 
of  obvious  experience — the  weakness  of  God,  the  distress  of  man : 
contrast  ;   '  perfect  member  of  a  perfect  whole.' 

§  4.  We  must  not  Judge  the  universe  by  a  canon  out  of  all  relation 
to  our  ordinary  standards  :  all  the  struggles  of  the  past,  religious  and 
political,  have  been  directed  against  arbitrary  and  irresponsible  power  : 
motive  and  meaning  to  be  interpreted  morally  ;  if  we  accept  any 
other  standard  we  are  back  once  again  in  unreasoning  awe  of  the 
unknown  :  we  start  with  the  historic  and  human  life  of  the  Saviour  : 
special  solicitude  for  individual  cases  {in  the  New  Testament). 

§  5.  Unconscious  Christianism  of  the  recent  age:  the  direct  lesson 
of  natural  science  certainly  not  self-effacement :  Christianity  begins 
by  recognising  the  legitimacy  and  ends  by  directing  the  impulse  of 
our  '  selfish  '  instincts — what  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  '  at  this  stage 
of  Western  culture,  no  idle  building  of  Pyramids  :  prerequisite  of 
all  appeal — guarantee  of  eternal  worth. 

§  I.  It  must  be  by  a  stretch  of  anthropomorphic  fancy  that 
we  apply  the  term  '  purpose '  to  the  world.  The  more  accurate 
and  strictly  scientific  method  is  to  posit  only  existence  and 
*  perfection,'  which  exclude  the  thought  of  plan,  of  any  gradual 


3i6  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

approach  to  a  better  state.  Many  thinkers  to-day,  while  they 
deny  to  it  purpose  and,  in  its  strictest  sense,  law,  believe  that 
purpose  (like  reason)  is  confined  to  man,  and  to  social  man ; 
and  so  once  more  we  are  brought  round  to  the  State  and  its 
sovereignty.  Now  we  need  not  waste  time  in  proving  badly 
what  history  proves  well :  that  satisfied  immersion  in  the  State 
is  a  feature  of  the  primitive  rudiments,  and  it  may  be  of  the 
dotage  also,  of  Society.  It  does  not  belong  to  the  period  of 
mature  thought,  which  is  also  the  period  of  criticism  and  of 
individuality.  The  attempt  of  Auguste  Comte  to  lay  meta- 
physical studies  under  an  interdict,  is  a  violent  and  half- 
mediaeval  reaction  against  private  liberty.  Man,  as  well  as 
being  a  citizen,  is  an  independent  partner  in  the  company  of 
rational  beings,  not  a  mere  'inlet  of  abstract  thought,'  a 
mutinous  point  in  *  groping  protoplasm.'  And  he  is  in  instant 
and  necessary  connection  with  the  cosmos ;  and  though  to-day 
he  has  at  length  learnt  a  wise  sobriety  and  temperateness  of 
epithet,  he  cannot  help  his  irresistible  appetite  to  unite,  to 
qualify,  and  to  explain.  The  application  of  the  term  '  law '  to 
physical  sequence  is  a  signal  instance  of  this  limit  to  human 
powers  of  self-surrender.  This  word,  happily  or  unhappily, 
is  bound  to  retain  all  the  implication  of  a  wise  authority, 
personal  or  manifold,  legislating  with  direct  and  conscious  aim 
for  the  common  good.  Of  this  association  it  is  nearly  im- 
possible to  rid  ourselves.  It  quiets  the  average  listener  to 
proofs  of  scientific  fatalism,  with  a  vague  but  friendly  and 
famiUar  sound ;  it  enables  the  man  of  exact  study  (who  must 
also  somehow  be  a  preacher)  to  pass  rapidly  from  one  '  law '  to 
another,  as  if  in  pari  materia ;  to  trace  the  reappearance  of 
*  natural  law  in  the  spiritual  world ' ;  to  spend  endless  time  in 
pious  but  fanciful  conciliations  of  Science  and  Religion.  No 
better  example  could  be  given  of  the  real  antithesis,  of  the 
hasty  alliances  and  superficial  compromises,  which  exist 
to-day  unappreciated.  The  term  'law'  has  introduced  into 
the  whole  survey  of  facts  a  teleologic  sentiment,  which,  as 
we  have  noted,  pacifies  the  vulgar  and  misleads  even  the 
accurate.  One  of  the  first  cares  of  a  religious  apologist  is  to 
disentangle  this  confused  skein,  to  inquire  not  into  the  error 
but  into  the  reason  of  the  error,  and  to  trace  carefully  the 
lesson  taught  by  this  curious  survival. 


TELEOLOGICAL  LANGUAGE  317 

§  2.  It  is  due  to  a  natural  and  well-grounded  fear  of  violently 
upsetting  the  basis  of  life,  or  to  a  belief  that  in  the  wreckage  of 
superfluous  superstition  a  minimum  of  pure  religion  can  be 
brought  safely  to  the  shore.  It  is  due  also,  and  in  no  small 
measure,  to  modern  specialism,  which  betrays  the  novice  or 
adventurer  in  a  foreign  subject  by  a  word,  a  phrase,  or  an 
assumption,  when  the  man  of  one  talent  heedlessly  strays 
beyond  his  particular  pursuit.  The  mathematician  detects  the 
strained  effort  when  the  pure  philosopher  draws  illustration 
from  an  unfamiliar  theme ;  the  philosopher,  in  his  turn,  when 
the  theologian  ventures  into  pure  speculation ;  but,  above  all, 
the  theologian  himself,  when  science  or  thought,  forsaking 
their  proper  sphere,  claim  to  exhort  and  to  convince  otherwise 
than  by  direct  proof  of  fact  or  logic.  A  man  of  calm  emotions, 
blameless  life,  and  unswerving  adherence  to  the  ordinary 
moral  standard,  throws  himself  into  a  particular  branch  of 
knowledge.  Though  he  claims  to  exercise  here  an  absolute 
independence,  he  can  never  really  emancipate  himself  from 
his  respectable  prepossessions.  His  ancestry  and  education, 
Hebrew  or  Scotch,  Celt  or  Slav,  his  temperament,  sanguine  or 
austere,  creep  out  at  significant  intervals,  in  spite  of  all  his 
disavowal.  Pure  Logic  has  perhaps  been  applied  to  life  only 
by  Nietzsche  with  remorseless  exactness.  Haeckel,  when  he 
stands  within  hail  of  practice,  becomes  pietistic  and  emotional. 
And  the  rest,  perhaps  in  Darwin's  happy  unconsciousness, 
have  laboured  to  show  how  appropriate  is  the  pure  teaching 
of  the  Gospel  in  an  age  which  can  strictly  recognise  no  power 
in  the  world  but  rude  and  irresponsible  force.  It  would  be  an 
impertinence,  if  we  were  not  sure  it  is  mere  inconsistency, 
when  such  forcible  rebuilders  of  the  world  of  practice  and 
theory  accuse  Christian  belief  of  that  very  antithesis  and 
dualism  of  which  their  own  creed  is  so  conspicuous  an  example. 
It  is  no  discredit,  surely,  if  the  stubborn  report  of  facts  or 
experience,  grating  harshly  on  our  finer  sense,  our  spiritual 
hopes,  our  moral  judgment,  at  once  drives  these  complex  men 
to  maintain  against  all  odds  their  instinctive  prejudices.  So 
far  from  capitulating,  they  hold  on  the  more  tenaciously.  Yet 
this  mood  of  arbitrary  compromise  and  separate  compartments 
must  be  merely  a  stage  of  transition.  If  you  have  once  allowed 
the  indefeasible  sovereignty  of  facts  and  despised  any  other 


3i8  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

intuition  of  truth,  it  is  impossible  to  reserve  a  certain  area  or 
doctrine  from  prying  or  seizure.  Disinclination  to  face  real 
issues  is  characteristic  of  our  time.  To  revert  to  the  original 
problem,  either  the  world  has  a  *  purpose '  or  it  has  none — it 
simply  ?V,  discoverable,  but  not  amenable  to  any  judgment  passed 
by  limited  and  purposive  reason  in  relation  to  itself.  If  it  has 
a  purpose,  it  must  be  one  either  intelligible  to  us  or  beyond 
our  scope.  If  intelligible,  it  must  include  us,  not  only  as 
*  means '  but  as  *  ends.'  No  one  to-day,  after  the  long  battles 
against  arbitrary  power,  is  prepared  to  sacrifice  (at  least  without 
a  conflict)  the  only  reality,  present  life  and  enjoyment,  for  a 
phantom.  Convince  a  worker  or  a  sufferer  that  it  is  no 
phantom,  but  a  serious  cause,  that  his  efforts  have  real  weight, 
that  in  the  issue  "  he  shall  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul  and 
shall  be  satisfied,"  and  he  will  lend  unselfish  aid.  But  the 
exclusion  of  the  toilers  in  the  world-process  from  share  in  a 
final  result  is  as  preposterous  as  the  exclusion  of  the  workers 
from  the  benefits  of  order,  comfort,  and  social  advance,  to 
which  they  so  largely  contribute,  from  which  they  reap  so  little. 
Sic  vos  non  vobis  t 

§  3.  Now,  if  it  be  once  granted  that  the  cause  is  somehow 
and  to  a  certain  degree  intelligible,  we  must  ask  how  it  comes 
to  be  within  our  capacity  to  understand.  And  we  must  not 
fear  the  taunt  of  humanism ;  for  we  cannot  step  off  our  own 
shadow  or  view  the  world  otherwise  than  through  human 
senses,  judge  it  by  any  other  standard  in  the  last  resort  than 
that  of  use  and  value.  The  days  of  empty  awe  before  the 
unknown  or  the  irresistible  are  rapidly  passing.  The  universe 
may  have,  like  the  God  of  Spinoza,  an  infinite  number  of 
attributes  and  purposes  which  we  cannot  fathom.  Christianity 
assures  us  of  one  supreme  end,  the  building  of  a  Divine  temple 
by  the  patient  polishing  of  the  several  stones.  The  historic 
process  takes  precedence  of  natural  law,  and  heaven  is  to  be 
attained  not  by  a  magical  fiat  but  by  a  toilsome  process  of 
individual  discipline.  But  it  is  not  conceivable  that  this 
attitude  to  the  world  which  we  believe  indispensable  to  the 
safety  of  Western  ideals  can  be  supported  by  any  direct  or 
irrefragable  proof.  The  fate  of  nations  was  once  held  to 
depend  on  moral  virtue  or  decline ;  we  know  now  that  the  law 
of  decay  follows  a  certain  and  fixed  cycle ;  over-refinement  or 


TELEOLOGICAL  LANGUAGE  319 

complex  civilisation  is  the  unvarying  prelude.  Neither  the 
open  book  of  Nature  nor  the  records  of  history  assure  us  of 
any  special  premium  set  on  'righteousness,'  and  it  is  mis- 
leading— except  perhaps,  after  Plato's  perilous  precedent,  to  add 
a  moral  for  youthful  studies — to  force  a  meaning  into  the  past. 
But  the  Gospel  speaks  to  us  of  a  definite  aim  from  the  very 
dawn  of  human  life,  in  which  each  willing  convert  bears  a  part, 
as  much  by  his  weakness  as  by  his  strength,  by  his  sufferings 
and  failure  as  by  his  success.  Other  religions  start  from  a 
sublime  idea  of  perfection  and  come  down  to  average  human 
level  with  reluctance  or  condescension.  But  Christianity 
starts  with  proposing  to  the  sinner  the  spectacle  of  a  suffering 
criminal;  and  thus,  by  at  once  meeting  the  distressed  and 
the  degraded  on  their  own  ground,  raises  on  this  basis  a 
theology  which  the  wisest  cannot  exhaust.  Other  systems 
begin  deductively  not  with  the  variety  and  complexity  of  our 
life,  but  with  the  unity  and  harmony  of  the  whole ;  they  are 
brought  down,  puzzled  and  perplexed,  to  the  principium  in- 
dividuationis  (if  I  may  in  this  connection  use  the  phrase)  and 
to  the  'problem  of  Evil.'  Christianity  boldly  confronts  the 
difficulty  which  they  explain  away  with  devious  or  plausible 
argument,  or  else  altogether  avoid ;  it  starts  with  the  weakness 
of  God  and  the  sin  and  sorrow  of  pain,  and  on  this  foundation 
of  fact,  that  may  not  be  gainsaid,  builds  its  edifice  of  morals, 
of  piety,  and  of  hope.  It  is  strange  that  this  unvarying  appeal 
to  faiihy  a  belief  in  a  real  so  different  to  its  'appearances,'  does 
not  prevent  the  message  from  being  understood  even  by  the 
humblest.  Indeed,  understanding  that  is  to  move  men  to 
action  and  endeavour  must  always  be  of  this  character ;  flaw- 
less knowledge,  which  mirrors  unchanging  verities,  carries  no 
such  incentive  or  stimulus.  'To  know  one's  self  as  perfect 
member  of  a  perfect  whole '  is  a  definition  of  religion  which 
for  most  men  would  have  no  meaning. 

§  4.  Now  it  must  be  widely  recognised  by  the  impartial 
inquirer  that  the  proposed  substitutes — human  perfectibility, 
race-virtue,  pure  idealism,  'super-man,'  or  any  doctrine  of 
an  already  beatified  absolute — do  not  take  the  slightest  pains 
to  make  themselves  clear  to  the  average  mind.  Their  pro- 
fessors have  no  aptness  for  reasoning  on  the  level  of  the 
common  people,  and  in  the  end  such  creeds  must  be  left  to 


320  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

their  authors,  subjective,  esoteric,  and  incommunicable.     That 
genus  of  mysticism,  supposed   separate  and  superior,   which 
claims  to  be  based  on  logic,  is  as  much  a  matter  of  feeling  as 
the  rest;  and  everybody  in  the  end  finds  what  he  went  out 
'  into  the  wilderness  to  see ' — a  note  of  harmony  in  a  discordant 
world  for  a  weary  soul  or  a  harassed  intellect — perhaps  a  pre- 
text for  that  abstention   and  shifting   of  responsible  burdens 
which  has  ever  followed  on  over-reflection.     If  we  must  judge 
the  universe  and  our  place  there  by  a  canon  quite  out  of  reach, 
quite  unsympathetic  to  our  normal  standard,  we  have  gained 
nothing  from  the  struggles  of  the  past,  against  arbitrary  will. 
Divine  or  human.     We  cannot  come  straight  from  open  con- 
verse with  our  fellows,  from  the  hearth,  the  market-place,  the 
political  debate,  and  introduce  into  that  religious  sense  which 
alone  can  make  life  one,  which  works  in  closest  intimacy  with 
all  its  parts,  categories  and  principles  wholly  unfamiliar  there  ! 
We  are  back  once  more  in  a  stupefied  wonder  at  the  incom- 
prehensible, from  which  it  is  the  function  of  all  true  personal 
religion  to  awaken  the  sleeper.     The  human  figure  of  Christ, 
His  teaching.  His  example,  can  at  least  be  understood;  the 
truth  of  His  claims  to   divinity,  of  His   promise  of  'eternal 
life,'  seem  to  have  been  gradually  borne  in  upon  believers  in 
His  personality  by  growing  conviction.     The  Church  begins, 
as  we  have  said,  by  induction ;  not  by  reference  to  a  general 
maxim,  but  in  solicitude  for  a  particular  case.     Each  case  is 
met  and  treated  on  its  own  merits ;  every  convert  is  taken  for 
a  season  *  apart  from  the  multitude,'  or  sent  into  some  Arabian 
solitude.     The  New  Testament  records  special  vocations,  and 
not  to  all  but  to  one  was  addressed  the  command,  '  Sell  all 
that  thou  hast.'     We  recommend  this  '  intelligibility '  with  all 
the  more  confidence,  because  no  careful  student  of  the  last 
century  can  doubt  the  source  of  its  inspiration.     Wherever  it 
lifted  itself  into   a    region    of    idealism    often   mistaken,    of 
enthusiasm  often  too  easily  disappointed,  we  may  detect  the 
impulse  of  a  soul  at  one  with  us  in  essentials,  fancying  indeed 
it  bore  out  the  advice  of  natural  law,  but  in  truth   reacting 
against  it  to  an  earlier  faith  in  God  and  man.     Seneca  scepe 
noster  .  .  .  testimonium  animce  naturaliter  Christiance. 

%  5.  Just  because  the  Churches,  reviving  after  torpor  to  a 
sense  of  a  world-mission,  could  offer,  not  merely  or  chiefly 


TELEOLOGICAL  LANGUAGE  321 

a  metaphysic  of  the  universe,  but  a  simple  rule  of  life,  of  a 
society  held  together  by  love  rather  than  by  force,  it  succeeded 
in  winning  converts,  even  among  those  who  least  suspected 
its  imperceptible  influence.  The  schemes  of  the  eighteenth 
century  were  antique  pagan  and  classical ;  the  whole  tone  of 
social  interest  and  improvement  in  the  next  age  is  Christian. 
And  while  rejoicing  in  this  manifest  token  of  the  adaptive 
power  of  the  Gospel  message,  we  may  not  allow  this  anomaly 
of  principles  and  practice  to  pass  unchallenged.  The  peculiar 
moral  of  a  survey  of  Nature  is  not  self-effacement,  but  realisa- 
tion of  self, — as  few  have  seen,  and  fewer  still  have  had  the 
courage  to  confess.  These  have  been  styled  madmen,  as  all 
are  styled  who  beat  their  wings  against  the  tyranny  of  pre- 
judice (which  has  outlived  or  forgotten  its  justification). 
Christianity  has  no  reason  to  avoid  confronting  facts — some- 
times strangely  and  wrongly  called  *  truth.'  Not  to  recognise 
the  value,  the  reasonableness  of  our  *  selfish '  instincts,  to  attempt 
to  expel  rather  than  ennoble  and  direct,  is  to  commit  an 
inexpiable  sin  against  the  individual  and  the  race.  Once  more 
we  must  assert  that  the  race,  at  this  latter  date,  is  not  likely 
to  build  useless  Pyramids  for  the  deification  of  an  idea;  to 
waste  itself  and  the  little  span  of  life  (its  only  certainty  to-day) 
in  wanton  asceticism.  Systems  and  creeds  that  do  not  pro- 
fess to  answer  this  initial  inquiry,  *What  must  I  do  to  be 
saved  ? '  are  already  doomed.  The  end  set  before  the  convert 
may  be  infinitely  remote,  but  must  be  clear  and  intelligible. 
An  ideal,  a  master,  blind  to  the  service,  the  distress,  the 
efforts  of  their  followers,  can  enlist  no  sympathy.  And  if  to 
this  blindness  be  joined  the  further  disqualification  that  the 
cause  is  already  won,  insult  is  added  to  injury.  The  whole 
moral  struggle  of  mankind  becomes  an  aimless  play  of  Divine 
forces,  without  end  or  meaning,  or  the  cruel  spectacle  of 
gladiators.  Such  a  deity  will  not  hear  from  humanity  in  these 
latter  days,  "  morituri  te  salutant,"  but  cries  of  protest  and 
righteous  wrath.  This  is  an  open  secret  to  those  who  know 
what  is  passing  in  minds  of  cool  reflection.  The  days  of  mere 
emotion  are  over ; — Renan  coming  in  to  supplement  the  rigour 
of  scientific  fact  with  Gallic  sentiment.  To-day  we  expect 
not  perhaps  an  alliance  but  a  careful  marking  out  of  boundary. 
Christianity  provides  indirectly  for  the  Universal,  because  it 
21 


322    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

appeals  directly  to  the  personal.  And  it  succeeds,  not  because 
it  denies  science  or  seeks  with  feverish  alarm  to  incorporate 
the  lesson  of  accumulating  facts  with  its  own  doctrine,  but 
because  it  teaches  self-respect,  and  guarantees  to  the  unit,  not 
momentary  pleasure,  but  eternal  worth. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  LECTURE  VIII— A 

On  the  Ideals  of  Modern  Democracy,  founded  on 
Christian  and  Medieval  Regard  for  the  Dignity 
OF  Man 

§  I .  Vital  connection  of  *  democratic  '  ideals  and  Christian  belief, 
if  we  interpret  the  vague  term  as  implying  appeal  to  the  moral 
sense  of  the  community  through  individual  privilege  and  responsibility  : 
democracy  rooted  in  compassion  and  justice  to  the  individual :  this 
is  threatened  on  all  sides  to-day,  in  theory  as  in  practice  :  serious 
inquiry  must  be  ;  what  is  meant  by  such  phrases  as  the  'future  lies 
with  democracy '  :  the  Gospel  alone  lends  any  reality  or  spirit 
to  these  claims  :  the  Church  recognises  the  new  spirit  only  so  far  as 
it  issues  from  a  certain  conception  of  human  nature  :  recounts,  like 
ideal  democracy,  privilege  {matter  of  faith  not  of  experience)  rather 
than  obligation. 

§  2.  The  worth  of  this  method  borne  out  by  the  testimony  of  all 
successful  government  :  majesty  of  law  cannot  be  set  up  again : 
apologetic  tone  of  authority  before  the  French  Revolution  ;  attempt 
to  justify  to  the  individual  moral  consciousness  :  taxes  and  laws 
binding  only  on  those  who  vote  them  :  genuine  and  patient  consulta- 
tion of  a  people,  congenial  to  Christianity,  and  next  to  impossible  in 
government  to-day,  economically  and  racially  competitive  :  necessary 
overriding  of  conscientious  minorities  {issue  unsuspected  by  earlier 
reformers)  cannot  be  reconciled  with  Christian  principle. 

§  3.  This  ideal  of  patient  '  democracy  '  full  of  concern  for  the 
weaker  brethren,  only  found  to-day  in  Christianity  :  elsewhere  other 
strange  ideals  of  manhood  and  citizenship  :  general  revulsion  of 
feeling  against  the  older  policy  of  '  let  alone  '  and  belief  in  human 
nature  :  the  new  types  of  the  visionary  ;  in  extremes  of  Nietzsche 
and  Hartmann  :  in  either  case  the  present  valueless  except  as  a  bridge 
to  the  future  in  which  we  have  no  share  :  but  the  people  demand  {with 
perfect  justice)  immediate  fruition  :  Christianity  reinforces  this 
claim  :  both  restore  to  man  his  confidtnce  and  self-respect,  seriously 
menaced  in  all  other  systems. 

§  4.  Is  human  nature  to  be  trusted  or  not  ?  :  Machiavelli  and 
Hobbes,  Luther  and  Rousseau  :  Mediaval  respect  for  '  Will  of  tht 
People,'  and  aboriginal  rights  of  individual  unit :  tenderness  for  the  part : 


324    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

even  methods  of  religious  persecution  derived  partly  from  this  sense  of 
personal  dignity  :  no  authority  conceived  as  irresponsible,  even  that 
of  Pope  or  Emperor  :  moral  criticism  of  all  rule  :  refusal  to  obey 
against  conscience  [denied  in  modern  times)  a  sacred  right ;  as  all  office 
a  sacred  trust  :  attempt  at  Reformation  to  discover  State-sovereignty 
above  law  :  fatal  theory  of  irresponsible  authority. 

§  5.  True  function  of  democracy,  moral  supervision ;  common 
culture  cannot  unite  all  classes,  only  common  moral  aim  :  its  hope- 
fulness in  unarmed  appeal  to  innate  justice  and  unselfish  instinct  : 
to  evoke  this  latent  but  powerful  force,  stress  on  personal  dignity, 
worth,  and  responsible  use  of  freedom  :  this  generous  creed  {common 
to  ideal  democracy  and  Christianity  alike)  depends  entirely  on  religious 
prepossessions  :  Christian  belief  and  the  welfare  of  Society,  one 
and  indivisible. 

§  I.  It  may  perhaps  seem  needless  to  lay  further  emphasis 
on  the  peculiar  debt  of  certain  modern  political  ideals  to 
Christianity.  While  in  their  strictest  sense  Christianity  and 
Socialism  are  irreconcilable,  the  vague  yet  potent  connotations 
of  the  term  *  democracy '  are  inseparable  from  Christian  belief, 
and  if  divorced  from  this  vital  union,  fall  at  once  to  the  ground. 
For  this  much-abused  word,  whatever  it  cannot  mean,  at  least 
implies  this :  an  appeal  to  the  general  moral  sense  of  the 
community,  not  to  its  criticism  of  detail  or  its  expert  cleverness, 
but  to  its  sound  practical  verdict  on  honest  men  and  whole- 
some measures.  Its  restriction,  in  the  mouth  of  many 
speakers,  to  class-rivalry,  to  the  envy  of  the  less  successful,  to 
the  seizure  of  certain  immediate  benefits,  would  be  grotesque, 
if  they  had  not  the  excuse  of  the  current  vagueness  and  misuse 
of  language,  and  the  pressing  need  to-day  of  the  restatement 
of  the  very  simplest  first  principles.  It  is  perhaps  a  truism 
that  the  most  familiar  is  also  the  most  foreign;  but  it  may 
be  doubted  if  any  other  word  of  equal  currency  is  employed 
with  such  varied  shades  of  meaning,  in  senses  and  contexts 
so  incompatible.  Now  the  whole  movement,  which  bears 
this  sonorous  but  somewhat  empty  title,  had  its  roots  in 
compassion  and  a  sense  of  justice,  in  a  conviction  of  individual 
value  in  spite  of  all  appearance ;  which,  native  to  the  human 
soul,  confirmed  and  developed  by  Christian  training  and 
promise,  are  out  of  fashion  in  a  strictly  scientific  and  com- 
petitive age.  To  this  '  democracy,'  all  the  tone  of  the  present 
age,  the  acumen  of  social  reformers,  the  spirit  of  letters,  the 


MODERN  DEMOCRACY  325 

grasp   and  intrigue   of  capital,  even   the   cabals   of  partizan 
statesmen,  are  alike  hostile.     And,  deserted  by  the  fashion, 
it  has  perhaps  forgotten  its  best  friend.     Yet  men  idly  repeat 
the   comforting  and    meaningless    phrase    that    'the    future 
lies  with  democracy.'     We  do  not  dispute  the  truth  of  this  in 
a  certain  sense.     Public  opinion  will  always  guide  and  have 
its   way,  as  it  has  done   in  the  past,  however  it  may  find 
expression — through  educated  sentiment,  plebiscite,  revolt,  an 
energetic  sovereign  with  a  mandate  from  his  people,  or  per- 
haps even  through  the  indirect  means  of  representative  institu- 
tions.    But  nothing  is  gained  by  parading  this  commonplace ; 
its  vague  universality  robs  it  of  all  real  life.     It  is  the  duty 
of  all  who  as  Christians  and  as  citizens  are  concerned  in  human 
welfare,  not  here  alone  but  wherever  man  is  found,  to  inquire 
seriously   what    men    wish    to    convey  and    understand,   in 
such  a  formula.     Those  who  have  had  the  patience  to  follow 
our  survey  so  far  will  recognise  (as  one  may  hope)  the  truth 
and  the  justice  of  the  claim  we  make  for  Christianity,  as  the 
sole  reinforcing  spiritual   power  behind  the  often  mistaken, 
often  abortive  efforts  of  'enfranchisement'  or  emancipation. 
The  axioms  of  the  Gospel  alone  lend  any  meaning,  give  any 
content  to  the  new  principles,  any  background  and  stability 
to  the  new  and  equal  life.     Let  others  commend  the  recent 
shifting   of  power   and   responsibility   as  a  matter  of  public 
utility,   as  a  relief  to   the   overburdened   shoulders   of  con- 
scientious   incompetence,   as   the   political   intrigue  of  party 
warfare.     With  such  the  Church  can  have  no  sympathy  and 
no  concern.     It  can  recognise  the  new  spirit  only  so  far  as 
it  issues  from  a  certain  conception  of  man's  nature,  dignity, 
rank,  function,  and  possibilities.    It  must  criticise  from  its  own 
point  of  view,  or  be  false  to  its  mission.     And  it  heartily 
welcomes  a  movement  which,  like  itself,  frankly  begins  its  task 
by  recounting  rights  before  duties,  privilege  before  obligation. 

§  2.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  man  of  sense,  with 
the  slightest  knowledge  of  what  'is  in  man,'  the  briefest 
experience  of  administration,  could  ever  hold  a  different  view. 
The  reflecting  man,  the  boasted  product  of  cool  enlightenment, 
hears  mention  of  law  and  regulation  with  dislike  and  suspicion. 
To  him,  all  such  is  a  servant  and  a  means ;  he  is  an  *  end-in- 
himself.'    You  may  appeal  to  his  logical  consistency,  or  (in 


326    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

practice  more  safely)  to  his  generous  instincts,  but  not  to  his 
fear  of  compulsion,  to  any  visible  or  palpable  sanction  of  a 
violated  precept.     Let  it  be  clearly  recognised  that  we  cannot 
reinvigorate  the  majesty  of  law  to  the  average  mind,  as  some- 
thing in  itself  desirable,  unless  it  first  be  submitted  to  a  test 
of  individual  approval ;  and  in  this  use  and  justice  inextricably 
combine.     When  the  doomed  monarchy  of  the  French  began 
to  preface  its  laws  by  long  academic  exordia,  recommending 
the  aim  and  motive  of  the  proposed  restriction  on  indefinite 
liberty,  a  great   principle   was   recognised,  congenial   to   the 
hopeful  yet  critical  temper  of  that  age.     Before  you   could 
issue  a  behest  you  must  justify  it  to  the  moral  consciousness. 
A  deprecating  and  apologetic  tone  was  noted  in  authority. 
But,  Uke  all  other  moral  principles,  this  was  overthrown  in  the 
Revolution ;  giving  place  to  the  imperious  word  of  command, 
the  drum-head  court-martial,  and  the  maxim  "  Salus  reipublicae 
summa     Lex,"     which     (however     disguised    by    diplomatic 
blandishments)   has    ever    since    remained    in    practice    the 
chief  guide   of  rulers.      That  people   should  only  pay  such 
taxes  as  they  had  voted,  only  obey  such  laws  as  they  had 
themselves  made,  is  not  a  recognition  of  this  latter  principle, 
but  a  direct  contradiction.     The  consultation  of  a  people  slow 
and  not  easily  moved,  hard  of  hearing  in  a  crisis,  and  sometimes 
carried  away  by  ungovernable  and  unexpected  impulse,  swayed 
unaccountably  by  personal    fascination,   is   a  toilsome    and 
precarious   process   which  suits  ill   the   needful  secrecy  and 
swiftness  of  competitive  governments  to-day.     But  it  accords 
well  with   the   Christian  view  of  freedom,  with  the  patient 
forbearance  which  marks  in  every  detail  the  work  of  Christ 
and  His  Church.     Wherever  a  minority  is  converted,  not  over- 
borne, there  is  the  Christian  spirit,  not  the  hasty  and  timid 
violence  into  which  representatives  of  the  people  are  so  often 
betrayed,   *  because    their   time   is  short '    and   their  charge 
revocable.     But  meantime  the  needs  of  the  Commonwealth 
cannot  wait;  and  the  active  interference  of  the  people   is 
confined   to  condoning  a  mandate  overstepped,  to  giving  a 
verdict  of  moral  condemnation,  when  it  is  too  late  to  retrieve 
the  neglect  or  the  blunder.     For  it  is  the  unhappy  irresponsi- 
bility of  government  to-day  which  is  a  curious  and  paradoxic 
issue  of  a  people's  claims  to  rule.     "  Quicquid  delirant,"  and 


MODERN  DEMOCRACY  327 

the  rest,  will  be  still  true  (for  it  is  always  the  few  who 
determine,  always  the  many  who  pay  the  cost) ;  but  with  the 
increase  in  the  numbers  of  a  so-called  responsible  body,  the 
sense  of  individual  accountability  has  almost  vanished. 

§  3.  Now  this  ideal  of  a  democracy,  patient,  moral,  and 
tender  towards  the  weaker  brethren,  not  a  plausible  excuse 
for  a  spirited  and  perhaps  unscrupulous  clique  of  experts, 
that  is  what  has  passed  to  the  asylum  and  guardianship 
of  the  Churches — of  Christian  belief  in  its  wide  sense.  Else- 
where there  do  indeed  exist,  apart  from  the  nervous  and 
superficial  opportunism  of  statesmen,  certain  ideals  of  man- 
hood and  of  citizenship,  which  are  almost  unrecognisable  as  a 
logical  extension  of  the  liberal  sentiment  and  implicit  Christian 
zeal  for  mankind,  out  of  which  they  pretend  to  have  proceeded. 
There  has  taken  place,  indeed,  a  complete  and  to  many 
unconscious  revulsion  of  feeling  against  the  old  principle  of 
*let  alone'  and  untrammelled  development.  Nothing  could 
well  be  more  abrupt  than  the  contrast  between  the  old  idealist 
belief  in  the  goodness  of  human  nature,  the  spontaneous 
flowering  of  virtue  in  the  open  air,  the  evils  of  all  restraint ; 
and  the  modern  conception,  daily  gaining  ground,  of  congenital 
weakness,  the  inertness  of  the  masses,  the  need  of  a  government 
strong,  pitiless,  and  minute.  The  eyes  of  the  dreamer  are  fixed 
on  a  remote  vision  of  a  *  new  creature.'  Impatient  with  the 
slow  process  of  present  aims,  he  will  gladly  sacrifice  all  to  a 
possible  future,  even  himself.  He  fancies  that  every  immediate 
interest  must  surrender  to  the  absorbing  pursuit  of  an  ideal 
man  or  type,  far  from  the  control  which  crushes  the  few  to 
the  level  of  the  many ;  or  of  a  race-consciousness  so  poignant, 
acute,  and  unanimous  that  the  ghost  of  the  *  Will-to-live '  will 
be  for  ever  *  laid.'  It  is  the  custom  to  deride  these  extremes 
of  position  and  negation — of  admiration  for  the  pure  unfettered 
spirit  exulting  as  *  over-man '  in  the  freedom  at  last  realised, 
of  mystical  devotion  and  surrender  to  Nothingness.  But 
between  these  two  hover  irresolutely  all  modern  views  of  the 
universe.  And  it  will  be  noted,  whatever  the  ultimate  aim, 
the  present  duty  for  the  average  member  would  be  the  same, 
submission  of  private  welfare  to  a  cause,  in  which  the  unit  by 
no  stretch  of  imagination  can  personally  hope  to  share.  It 
is  just  at  this  moment,  when  reflected  thought  soars  into  a 


328  THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

region  so  remote  from  average  sympathies  and  ideals,  that  the 
Christian  message,  "  Now  is  the  appointed  time,  now  is  the 
day  of  salvation,"  comes  to  the  support  and  the  purification  of 
the  righteous  and  democratic  demand  for  immediate  fruition. 
For  both  of  these  try,  in  the  very  teeth  of  things,  to  stem  the 
tide,  to  arrest  the  perpetual  flux,  for  each  individual ;  to  make 
him  somehow  an  *  end-in-himself,'  because  for  him  and  his 
eternal  welfare  came  into  being  the  visible  system,  screen  or 
scaffolding  of  a  spiritual  purpose.  God  the  Son  descended  from 
glory  to  take  on  Him  '  the  form  of  a  servant,'  and  to  suffer 
death  upon  the  Cross — vwep  ov  Xpto-ros  drrWavev,  here  as  always 
the  ultimate  guide  in  conduct,  ultimate  truth  in  dogma.  Even 
if  none  other  but  he  were  to  be  saved,  the  'tremendous 
sacrifice '  would  have  been  somehow  worth  while.  Both  begin 
by  restoring  to  man  his  confidence,  self-respect,  by  assuring 
him  of  his  prerogative — a  prerogative  which  cannot  be  reason, 
for  that  is  late  and  secondary  and  partial,  but  is  found  in  the 
heart,  in  the  generous  instincts  to  which  appeal  is  seldom 
made  in  vain.  We  must  soon  face  the  dilemma, — shall  we 
treat  human  nature  as  radically  good,  or  radically  evil  ?  in  need 
of  absolute  independence  or  absolute  tutelage?  as  having 
in  itself  some  impulse  towards  the  light,  some  source  of 
spontaneous  action,  or  in  default  of  any  intrinsic  spring,  to  be 
caught  young  and  moulded  in  a  fixed  type  to  automatic  virtue  ? 
§  4.  We  must  choose  between  the  rival  merits  of  the  scientific 
and  antique,  the  religious  and  personal  view ;  between  a  con- 
ception suggested  by  Machiavelli  and  Hobbes  and  followed 
more  or  less  openly  by  modern  statecraft,  and  a  conception 
based  on  Christian  principles  reinforced  by  Roman  civil  law, 
maintained  with  unabated  pretensions  through  the  Middle  Ages, 
revived  against  authority  by  Luther  for  a  brief  space  (before 
he  and  his  followers  yielded  to  the  false  charm  of  '  almightiness 
and  power'  in  both  spheres.  Divine  and  human),  and  once 
more  proposed  by  Rousseau  and  the  genuine  '  liberalism '  he 
called  into  being.  Gierke,  who  lifts  the  veil  from  much  that 
is  obscure  in  mediaeval  theory,  helps  us  to  understand  the 
ideal  of  that  inconsistent  age,  lofty  and  grovelling  at  the  same 
time :  his  entire  volume  bears  out  our  contention  that  some- 
thing of  vital  importance  has  since  been  lost  or  forgotten. 
"Political  thought,"  he  affirms,  "when   genuinely  mediaeval, 


MODERN  DEMOCRACY  329 

starts  from  the  w?ioley  but  ascribes  an  intrinsic  value  to  every 
partial  whole,  down  to  and  including  the  individual.  If  it 
holds  out  one  hand  to  Antique  thought,  when  it  sets  whole 
before  parts^  and  the  other  to  the  modern  theory  of  Natural 
Law,  when  it  proclaims  the  intrinsic  and  aboriginal  rights  of 
the  individual^  its  peculiar  character  is  that  it  sees  the 
Universe  as  one  articulated  whole^  and  every  being  (whether 
joint  being,  or  community,  or  a  single  being)  as  both  a  part 
and  a  whole :  a  part^  determined  by  the  final  cause  of  the 
Universe,  and  a  whole  with  a  final  cause  of  its  own.  To 
every  being  is  assigned  a  place  in  that  whole^  and  to  every 
link  between  beings  corresponds  a  Divine  decree"  (ou  yap 
ytVcrai  ttoAis  ki  o/jlolcov).  Later :  "  An  ancient  and  generally 
entertained  opinion  regarded  the  Will  of  the  People  as  the 
source  of  temporal  power."  Even  in  the  religious  persecution 
we  read  an  extraordinary  respect  for  the  individual.  Baldus, 
writing  at  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  century,  enlarges  quite 
in  the  spirit  of  the  old  apologue  of  the  belly  and  the  members, 
upon  the  State  as  an  organism — not  in  the  modern  light  to 
read  a  lesson  of  the  validity  of  the  law  of  self-preservation, 
overriding  all  other  rules,  but  to  point  to  the  value  and 
importance  of  the  minutest  fraction  of  the  body  politic. 
This  tenderness  for  the  part  is  emphatic :  "  Si  abscinderetur 
auricula,  non  esset  corpus  perfectum  sed  monstruosum " ;  if 
remonstrance  fails,  in  the  last  resort,  a  ruler  may  proceed  to 
amputation,  but  "  cum  dolore  compassionis  "  :  —  "  ne  pars 
sincera  trahatur."  It  is  a  great  error  to  attribute  to  mere 
irony  the  double  truth  (of  faith  and  reason),  or  to  mere 
hypocrisy  the  solicitude  and  tedious  delay  of  the  Inquisition's 
method.  A  natural  human  bent  towards  tyranny,  a  Southern 
delight  perhaps  in  cruelty  towards  a  foe,  is  here  struggling 
against  a  sincere  respect  for  another; — a  wish  to  postpone 
harshness  until  it  could  no  longer  be  avoided.  "Lordship 
is  office,"  says  Gierke,  "and  implies  not  ownership  but 
duties.  .  .  .  Pope  and  Emperor  stood  on  the  same  level,  with 
any  president  of  a  corporation."  Over  all  was  the  idea  of 
Divine  law  anterior  to  any  special  enactments,  which  derived 
their  authority  only  from  conformity  to  it.  "  Superiori,"  says 
Decius,  about  a  century  after  Baldus,  "non  est  obediendum 
quando  egreditur  finis  officii  sui."     With  the  disappearance 


330    THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 

of  the  Church's  claims  to  be  a  disinterested  and  effective 
interpreter  of  this  law  (which  the  secular  magistrate  should 
execute  under  its  instructions)  witli  the  revival  of  the  ancient 
spirit  of  *  realism*  and  antique  influences,  the  State  (as  we 
have  often  remarked)  threw  off  the  wholesome  restraint. 
"Jurisprudence  and  philosophy,  as  soon  as  they  felt  the 
first  rustle  of  the  breath  of  classic  antiquity,  vied  with  each 
other  in  discovering  a  theoretical  expression  for  an  idea  of 
the  State  which  should  be  independent  of  the  idea  of  Law." 
In  a  word,  "the  State's  relation  to  Law  is  not  merely  sub- 
servient and  receptive,  but  rather  dominant  and  creative." 
Sovereignty  was  elevated  above  positive  law :  "  Princeps " 
(for  in  personal  monarchy  alone  in  the  eyes  of  the  publicist 
lay  the  chances  of  the  State)  "  legibus  solutus  est." 

§  5.  We  have  spoken  of  the  only  true  function  of '  democracy ' 
to  maintain  a  general  moral  supervision  over  those  actual 
rulers,  who  even  in  the  tiniest  or  most  progressive  of  common- 
wealths must  always  be  a  minority.  If  the  people  surrender 
this,  there  is  nothing  left  for  them.  The  sovereign  who  is 
'above  law'  may  become  a  'law  to  himself,'  or  bow  to  public 
opinion.  But  we  can  only  regard  with  fear  and  suspicion 
absolute  power  lodged  in  the  hands  of  an  anonymous  body, 
a  'Venetian  oligarchy,'  to  all  intents  irresponsible  as  units. 
That  which  binds  together  rulers  and  ruled  can  never  be  a 
common  culture,  but  only  a  common  moral  aim.  Democracy 
believes  that  this  impulse  to  cheerful  corporate  action  (not 
seldom  involving  sacrifice  of  personal  well-being  though  never 
of  personal  principles  and  hopes)  is  inborn  in  every  man. 
And  (as  the  experience  of  the  genuine  ruler  will  bear  out) 
to  call  forth  this  sentiment  needs  not  minute  regimentation 
nor  a  system  of  fear,  but  a  sense  of  privilege,  of  dignity,  and 
of  responsible  use.  Like  Christianity,  the  true  reformer 
preaches  a  gospel  of  faith ;  and  gives  men  rights  before  they 
have  learnt  to  employ  them.  But,  it  must  be  earnestly 
maintained,  this  generous  creed  has  no  lasting  root  except  in 
the  principles  and  prepossessions  which  it  shares  with,  or 
has  derived  direct  from  the  Gospel.  The  contest  of  science 
and  democracy  is  no  idle  paradox,  no  academic  antithesis. 
It  pervades  and  confuses  modern  thought  and  modern 
endeavour.     It  gives  rise  to  eager  and  spasmodic  efforts  after 


MODERN  DEMOCRACY  331 

individual  interest,  at  the  conquest  of  the  mass  through  the 
reclaimed  units  which  compose  it.  And,  after  these  inter- 
mittent attempts,  it  compels  the  disheartened  reformer  to 
sink  back  again  into  hopeless  apathy,  surrendered  to  currents 
which  set  in  an  unknown  direction;  or  take  refuge  in  the 
feverish  ineffectiveness  of  legislation,  which  must  always  remain 
'  outside '  and  in  a  measure  hostile.  Belief  in  human  nature, 
in  the  priceless  worth  of  the  person  and  his  immortal  destiny, 
in  the  abiding  solicitude  of  God  for  the  meanest  and  most 
depraved,  in  the  sense  of  worth  and  steady  though  slow 
advance  towards  full  membership  of  the  kingdom, — in  these 
thoughts,  as  we  believe,  indispensable  to  any  happy  life  among 
Western  nations,  in  these  *  ventures  of  faith,'  our  heritage 
from  the  past  and  our  hopes  for  the  future,  the  Gospel  and 
the  Churches  can  reinforce  the  flagging  interest  and  can  put 
life  into  the  dismayed  outlook.  Christian  belief  and  the 
welfare  of  Society  are  one. 


INDEX 


Abelard,  31,  169,  178. 

Absolute,  the,  Schelling's  conception 

of,  118. 
African  Church,  262. 
Age  of  history,  270. 
Age  of  reason,  99,  154-155,  232 
Age  of  the  despots,  220-221. 
Ages  of  Faith — 

Mediaeval,  falsely  so  called,  75- 
76,  288. 

Present,  281. 

Reformation  the  starting-point  of, 
289. 
Aim  of  present  lectures,  55j  71* 
Alexander  of  Hales,  170. 
Alexandrian  School,  3,  5,  30. 
Amalric,  109,  179. 
Anabaptists,  179. 
Anarchism,  226. 
Anaxagoras,  22. 
Anchoritism,  207. 
Anglican  Church — 

'  Catholic '  movement  in,  278. 

Extremists  expelled  from,  242. 

Social    and    political    questions, 
implication  in,   149. 

State  and,   illogical  relation  of, 
223. 
Anselm,  163,  169,  170. 
Antinomian      tendency      of     pure 

thought,  220. 
Antithesis.     {See  also  Dualism) — 

Behmen's  insistence  on,  98. 

Development  through,  134. 

Modem  attitude  towards,  3-5,  7. 
Apologetics,  Christian — 

Difficulty  of,  2,  6-7,  17. 

Narrowed  aims  of,  10. 

Necessary  task  of,  8. 

Place  of,  165. 

Representative  character  of  apolo- 
gists, 6. 

Tone  of,  147. 
Apologetics,  intellectual,  limitations 
of,  166. 


Appuleius,  240. 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  system  of,  31, 
33,  61,  170-171,  178. 

Aristotle,  22,  61,  109,  301  ;  system 
of,  28,  159-160,  205,  299,  311  ; 
Medioeval  prohibition  of,  170. 

Art  compared  with  philosophy,  118. 

Asceticism,  Pagan  exaltation  of,  9, 
29. 

Asquith,  H.,  quoted,  179. 

Atomists,  216,  240. 

*  Augustan '  ages,  220. 

Augustine,  3,  30,  167,  262,  263. 

Average  moral  consciousness,  Chris- 
tian appeal  to,  5. 

Averroes,  132,  302. 

Bacon,  28,  172,  257. 

Baldus  cited,  329. 

Bayle,  Peter,  137. 

Beghards,  179. 

Behmen,  97-98,  119.  253. 

Being  and  working,  identity  of,  lOO. 

Berengarius  cited,  169. 

Bernard,  170,  180. 

Bible,  the,  177,  182. 

Bodinus,  32. 

Brahminism,  203. 

Brotherhood — 

Development  of  idea  of,  42. 

Medioeval  emphasis  of,  59. 
Browning,  Robert,  cited,  300. 
Bruno,  96. 

Buckle  cited,  148,  221. 
Buddhism,  203. 

Csesarism,  24,  65,  219,  221,  223. 

Calvin,  226. 

Calvinism,  249. 

Carlyle  cited,  204. 

Cartesian  School.     See  Descartes. 

Casuistry,  30,  31,  173. 

Categories  in  Hegelian  system,  120, 

123. 
Catholicity  a  test  of  value,  274-275, 


333 


334 


THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


Cavour  cited,  223. 
Celibacy,   philosophic   attitude   to- 
wards, 22,  29. 
Cerinthus,  262. 
Charles  i..  King,  242. 
Chinese  Empire,  195,  204. 
Christian  Church.    {See  also  African, 
Anglican,    Greek,    Protestant, 
Roman) — 
Community,  regarded  as  a,  153. 
Conciliatory  function  of,  144,  151, 

201. 
Defencelessness  of,  her  strength. 

Detachment    of,    from     political 
parties,  151. 
Christianity — 

Adaptability  of,  126. 

African  Church,  262. 

Communistic  ideal  of,  312. 

Conscience  and  conformity  sepa- 
rated in,  219. 

Democratic  ideal  inseparable  from, 

324-325- 

Dogmatic  paradox  in,  264. 

Essential  nature  of,  188. 

Greek  Church,  219. 

Humanistic,  259-260. 

Intelligibility  of,  319-320. 

Law,  Gospel  a  protest  against,  134. 

*  Mythologic  postulate  '  objec- 
tion, 286-287. 

Only  hope  of  society,  290,  331. 

Reformed  Churches.  See  Pro- 
testant. 

Revival  of,  in  nineteenth  century, 
229. 

Roman  Church.     See  that  title. 

Self-realisation  assured  by,  321- 
322. 

Socialism  incompatible  with,  324. 

Starting-point  of,  319. 

Struggle  in,  260. 

Supplementary  character  of, 
theory  as  to,  178. 

Survival  of,  a  justification,  282. 

Teleology  of,  4,  135. 

Theology  divorced  from  Gospel, 

17. 

Universality  of  appeal   of,    5-6, 
106,  144,  147,  151,  188,  314. 
Unselfishness  of,  236. 
Value  of,  in  practical  affairs,  282. 
Worth  and  work  claim  satisfied 
by,  140-141,  144. 
Christopher,  St.,  23,  39,  132. 
Cicero,  22,  205,  304. 


Citizen,  Christian  and  philosopher 

contrasted,  200. 
Civic  ideal,  22.     {See  also  State. ) 
Classes,  separation  of,  292-296. 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  2. 
Compromise — 

Modern  time,  note  of,  317-318. 

Scepticism,  result  of,  294. 
Comte,  Auguste,  124,  268,  316. 
Confucianism,  204. 
Conscience'  sake,  resistance  for,  248. 
Constitutionalism,  209,  269,  295. 
Contract  method,  293-295,  312. 
Contrast,  law  of,  98. 
Copernican  Lutheranism,  32. 
Cosmic  emotions,  239. 
Cosmic  process,  defiance  of,  159. 
Cosmopolitan    federation,   idea   of, 

156. 
Cosmopolitanism,  Greek,  205,  216, 

234-235. 
Credenda — 

Analysis  and    demonstration  of, 

by  Mediaeval  Church,  288. 
Co-ordination   of,    attempted    by 

Gnostics,  262. 
Deistic  statement  of,  182. 
Enforcement  of,  75. 
Interrogative  towards,  10. 
Irreducible  minimum  of,  1 51-152. 
Rational    proofs    for,    Anselm's 

view  regarding,  169. 
Righteous  instinct  must  be  satis- 
fied by,  251. 
Simplification  of,  13. 
Crusades,  220. 
Cudworth,  242. 
Cusa,  Nicholas  of,    73,    112,    118, 

251. 
Cynic  School,  205,  216,  311. 
Cyprian,  3,  262-263. 
Cyrenaics,  27. 

Darwin,  125,  317;  quoted,  270. 

David,  179. 

de  Tocqueville  cited,  232. 

Decius  quoted,  329. 

Deism — 

Collapse  of,  250. 

Credenda  as  stated  by,  1 81-182. 

'  Enthusiasm '  distasteful  to,  278. 

Jesuits  charged  with,  277. 

Nature  of,  13,  97,  137,  210,  249. 

Pantheistic  tendency  of,  97,  175. 
Democracy — 

Christianity  akin  and  essential  to 
ideal  of,  34,  131,  324-325. 


INDEX 


335 


Democracy — continued. 
Confidence  in  humanity  the  atti- 
tude of,  196,  227,  330. 
Conservatism  inherent  in,  303. 
Disappointment    regarding,    82, 

211,  331- 
Function  of,  330. 
Generosity  in,   suggested  appeal 

to,  198,  330. 
Hero-worship  in  relation  to,  216. 
Hostile  forces  against,  131. 
Immediacy  of  fruition  demanded 

by,  94,  131  >  144,  287,  328. 
Meaning  and  origin  of  term,  129, 

324- 
Mediaeval       Church's       attitude 

towards,  59. 
Misapprehension  regarding,  6,  15. 
Opportunist  dealings  with,  157. 
Privilege  in  detachment,  attitude 

towards,  310-312. 
Revolution  by,  14-15. 
Science    and    philosophy,    feud 

with,  244,  268. 
Unconcern  of,    with    first    prin- 
ciples, 212. 
*  Will  of  the  people ' — 
Emergence  of,  14-15,  17,  156. 
Middle  Ages,  in,  329. 
Supremacy  of,  34. 
Democritus,  26. 
Descartes,    16,    96,    97,    155,   208, 

220. 
Despotism,  enlightened,  as  theory 

of  government,  65. 
Development.     See  Evolution. 
Devotion  to  a  cause,  85,  125,  132, 

189,  198,  229,  232. 
Dionysius,  251. 
Disillusionment,  20,  22-23. 
Divine,  meanings  of  term,  299. 
Divine  attributes,  47-48  ;  rejection 

of  moral,  72-73. 
Dogma — 

Differing  estimates  of,  1 79. 
Growth  of  system  of,  167. 
Mysterious  nature,  view  as  to,  170. 
Double  truth  theory,  30,   1 77-178, 

180,  181,  208. 
Dualism.     {See  also  Antithesis) — 
Absence  of,  in  system  of  Aquinas, 

178. 
Certainty  and  hope,  separation  of 

realms  of,  84. 
Christian  attitude  towards,  29. 
Hellenistic,  29. 
Mediaeval  compromise  of,  61. 


Dualism — contitiued. 
Persistence  of,  4,  136,  158,  268. 
Post-Reformation,  181. 
Prominence  of,  in  English  thought, 

12. 
Science  and  religion,  of,  178. 
Stoic  monism,  latent  in,  272. 
Theory  and  practice,  of,  125. 
Dubois- Reymond  cited,  273. 
Duns  Scotus,  system  of,  3,   II-12, 
16,  61,  177,  179,  263;  diverse 
elements  in,  31-32. 

Eckhart,  109,  251. 
Edwardes,  250. 
Efficiency  as  aim,  62,  68. 
Emancipation  of  slaves,    93,    105, 

231-232,  276,  286. 
Emerson,  253. 
Empedocles,  11. 
Energy,  centres  of,  lOl. 
Enlightenment,  Age  of.    See  Age  of 

Reason. 
'  Enthusiasm,'  278. 
'  Enthusiasts,'  185,  242. 
Epicureanism,  27,  205,  305-307. 
Epicurus,  176. 

Equality  of  man,  theory  of,  68. 
Erigena,  9,  ii,  109,  169. 
Eutychianism,  4. 
Evil,  problem  of,  98, 
Evolution — 

Antithesis,  by,  134, 

End-in-itself  theory,  1 17. 

Law  of,  98. 

Leibnitzian    insistence    on,  100- 

lOI. 

Exceptional,  the — 

Law  intolerant  of,  292. 
Religious  demand  for  exceptional 
treatment.      See  under  Re- 
ligion. 
Value  of,  loi,  152,  166,  293. 
Experience,  inward,  6,  10,  12,  50, 
89. 

Faith- 
Ages  of,  75-76,  281,  288,  289. 
Conception  of,  offered,  75. 
Emotional  test  of,  172. 
Evil  a  motive  for,  104. 
Facts  in  discord  with,  289. 
Hegelianism    founded    on,    113, 

123. 
Human  nature,  in,  296. 
Levelling  effect  of,  279. 
Mediaeval  Church,  in,  168. 


33<5 


THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


Faith — continued. 

Morality's  demand  on,  72,  75,  86, 
144,  173,  191,  281-282. 

Rationalistic    axioms   transferred 
to  realm  of,  183. 

Reason,  antithesis  with,  75. 

Works  in  contrast  with,  30-31. 
Fatalism,  94-95. 
Feudalism,  31,  173,  291-292. 
Feuerbach  cited,  134. 
Fichte,  98,   182;    system  of,   iio- 
III,    116-117,    157;    quoted, 
189  ;  cited,  203. 
Figgis,  Mr.,  quoted,  207. 
Force — 

Doctrine  of,  24. 

Hegelian     '  Reason '    better     so 
called,  114. 

Mind-stufF,  112. 

Modern  appeal  to,  150,  21 1. 

Sole  existence,  as,  loi. 
Franchise  extension,  286. 
Freedom  of  modern  times,  224. 
Freemasons,  277. 
Free-thought — 

Anti -moral  tendencies  of,  72. 

Reaction  against,  170. 

Seventeenth  century,  in,  222. 
Free-will — 

Mallock  on,  13 1. 

Personal  sense  of,  224-225,  305. 
French  Revolution — 

Atheist  attitude  before,  135. 

Cause  of,  16,  65. 

Conduct  of,  65-66. 

Miscalculation  regarding,  15. 

Progress  of,  93,  233. 

Galileo,  loi ;  cited,  152. 
Gierke  quoted,  66,  328-329. 
Gnostic  Theophany,  132. 
Gnosticism,  261-262. 
Gomperz  quoted,  214-215,  298. 
Good  will,  24,  28. 
Gore,  Bishop,  quoted,  245. 
Gospel.     See  Christianity. 
Government — 

Caesarism,  24,  65,  219,  221,  223. 

Constitutionalism,  209,  269,  295. 

Essential  basis  for  welfare  of,  21 1. 

Irresponsibility  of  modern,  326. 
Greek  Church,  219. 
Greek  Fathers,  5,  9. 
Greek  Schools,  tendency  in,  1 59. 
Greek  Tragedy,  301-302. 
Gunther  cited,  180. 
Guyon,  Madame  de,  45. 


Plaeckel,  317  ;  quoted,  83. 
Happiness,     universal     claim     to, 

132-133. 
Harmony   of    contradictories,    II2, 

118. 
Hartmann,    82,    305  ;    system   of, 
124,   291  ;   quoted,    117,   141  ; 
cited,  120,  159. 
Heaven — 

Individualist  conception  of,  283- 

284. 
Mediaeval  conception  of,  67. 
Hedonism — 
Mystic,  256. 
Prse- Revolution,  229. 
Hegel,    98,    159,    253,    260,   305; 
system  of,  91,    112-114,    116, 
1 19-123,  206,  211, 230 ;  quoted, 
170 ;  cited,  204. 
Hegelianism,  British,  202,  211. 
Heine  quoted,  163. 
Helvetius,  loi. 

Heraclitus,  170,  217,  260,  299. 
Herbert,  Auberon,  cited,  226. 
Heresies,  early,  origin  of,  5. 
'  Higher '    and    *  lower,'    sense    of 

terms,  37,  82. 
Historical  method,  8. 
Historical    research,    province  and 

limitations  of,  92. 
History,  Hegelian  emphasis  on  im- 
portance of,  121. 
Hobbes,  223,  226,  328. 
Hobhouse,  Mr.,  cited,  287. 
Hoffding,  Prof.,  quoted,  104-105. 
Hofmann  controversy,  180. 
Holbach,  15  ;  cited,  155. 
Hugh  of  St.   Victor,    180;    cited, 

170. 
Humanism — 

Christian,  259-260. 
Decline  of,  159-160. 
Eighteenth  century,  in,  32. 
Greek,  176,  204,  234,  298,  299. 
Values,  a  fixing  of,  218. 
Hume,  David,  103,  209. 
Plutcheson,  103. 

Huxley,  Prof.,  63,  125,  225,  232; 
quoted,  142  ;  cited,  190. 

Idealist  and  Naturalist,  meeting- 
ground  of,  112. 

Ideas  V.  persons,  93. 

Immanence,  theory  of,  109. 

Immortality,  justice  of  demand  for, 
190. 

Indifference,  place  of,  112,  118. 


INDEX 


337 


Individual,  Fichte's  despair  of,  117. 
Individual  as  end-in-himself — 
Christian  recognition  of,  92,  121, 
134,  140-141,  152,  153,  186, 
268,  308,  328. 
Disregard  of,  63,  95. 
Emancipation  based  on  doctrine 

of,  231-232. 
Imperialism  in  relation  to,  130. 
Mediaeval  insistence  on,  66-67. 
Origin  of  doctrine,  214. 
Individual  consciousness  as  aim  in 

world -process,  213. 
Individual    freedom  —  of    modern 
times,     224 ;     under     Roman 
Empire,  240. 
Individualism — 

Eighteenth  century,  33-34. 
Heaven  as  conceived  by,  283-284. 
Impossibility  of,  as  an  ideal,  84. 
Sophistic,  214. 

Sovereignty  of  Individual  in  con- 
flict with  Sovereignty  of 
State,  67-68,  105,  181 ;  com- 
promise of  Roman  Empire, 
219. 
Tendency  towards,  in  European 
thought,  21. 
Industrialism  of  nineteenth  century, 

230,  244. 
Instinct,  160,  162. 
Intellect- 
Christian  system,  position  in,  5-7, 

11-12. 
Detachment  of,  in  modem  times, 

21. 
Kant's  system,  position  in,  68. 
Pagan  systems,  position  in,  9. 
Sphere  of,  25. 
Intellectualism — 

French  and  Russian,  216. 
Mediaeval,  165-173. 
Orthodoxy  resented  by,  179-180. 
Islam,  II,  171. 

James,  Prof.  William,  quoted,  90, 
165,  167  ;  cited,  241-242,  312. 
Jankelevitch,  268. 
Jesuits — 

Anti-moral  self-surrender  of,  241. 

Deism  charged  against,  277. 

Dissolution  of  Order  of,  14,  222. 

Tenets  of,  248. 
Jews — 

Deity  of,  240. 

Religion     superseding     morality 
among,  241. 

22 


Joachim,  Abbot,  260. 

Jones,  Henry,  quoted,  258,  300. 

Jurisprudence,  mediaeval  exaltation 

of,  206. 
Justice — 

Hume  on,  in. 
Mallock  on,  130. 
Omission  of,  as  Divine  attribute, 
47. 

Kaftan  quoted,  166. 
Kant,  Immanuel — 

*  Anglican '  spirit  of,  243. 

Neo-Kantians,  115,  158. 

Post- Kantian  Schools,  91. 

Rousseau's  influence  on,  104. 

Socrates,  compared  with,  218. 

System  of,  104-105,  iio-iii. 

Work  of,  68. 

otherwise    mentioned,    34,    231, 
251,  265. 
Kepler,  270. 
Ker,  Prof.,  quoted,  138. 

Lactantius,  3,  9,  32,  169,  263. 
Laing,  Samuel,  cited,  161. 
Lanfranc  cited,  170. 
Latin  Church.    See  Roman  Church. 
Law — 

Compact  of  self-interest,  249. 
Dualism  implied  in,  282. 
Exceptional    not    tolerated    by, 

292. 
Hostility  to,  246-248. 
Individual  approval  necessary  for, 

326. 
Natural.     See  Nature. 
Phases  in  conception  of,  284. 
Physical  sequence,  application  of 

term  to,  316. 
Post -Reformation    character    of, 

248. 
Purpose  of,  251. 
Roman  supremacy  of,  176-177. 
Sovereignty  above,  330. 
Le  Maistre,  Joseph,  74. 
Leibnitz,  98,  264;  work  of,  13,  16; 

system  of,  99-103. 
Leighton,  Mr.,  quoted,  123. 
Leisured  classes,  31 1-3 12. 
Lessing,  10,  76,  169,  190,  253. 
Levy-Bruhl,  268. 
Liberal  ideals  of  nineteenth  century, 

211. 
Liddel  cited,  180. 

Literature  as  representing  its  age, 
299-300. 


338 


THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


Locke,  loi. 

A<J7os-doctrine,  9. 

Lotze,   Herman,  quoted,  74,   136 ; 

cited,  190. 
Love — 

Nature  of,  26. 
Universality  of,  1 87. 
Loyalty,  anomalous  character  of,  in 

modern  states,  194. 
Lucian  quoted,  206. 
Lucifer,  98. 
Lucilius,  175. 
Lucretius,  240,  306. 
Lully,  171. 
Luther,  Martin,  62,  180,  194,  219, 

328. 

Machiavelli,  32,  328;  State-theory 

of,  62-63,  194- 
McTaggart,  Mr.,  182;  quoted,  201- 

202. 
Majority-rule,  284,  285. 
Malebranche  quoted,  96. 
Mallock,  W.  H.,  quoted,  130,  131, 

140 ;  cited,  224-225. 
Man — 
Average,  212. 
Differentia  of — 

Action,  104,  114. 

Enthusiasm  and  self-surrender, 
186,  189. 

Intelligence,  114. 

Self-preservation,  99. 

Sociability,  73,  205. 
Helplessness    of,     modern    por- 
trayal of,  303. 
Measure  of  all  things,  217, 299, 302. 
Primitive,  160-161,  241. 
Marcus  Aurelius,  175,  206,  261. 
Marsilius  of  Padua,  66. 
Mediaeval     Church.        Su     under 

Roman  Church. 
Medisevalism,  new,  close  of,  159. 
Merz,  Mr.,  cited,  256. 
Mill,   J.    S.,  63,    125  ;  system   of, 

137;    quoted,    124,     142-143; 

cited,  253. 
Minorities,  149. 
Missionary  devotion,  41. 
Mithraists,  240. 
Monarchy,  194-195. 
Monism,  83,  209  ;  failure  of,  243. 
Montaigne,  156,  208. 
Moral      action,      classification     of 

motives  of,  26. 
Moral  order,  theories  as  to,  I  lO-l  12, 

117;  Sidgwick's  view  as  to,  121. 


Moral  V.  intellectual,    5-7,  11-12, 

68,  330. 
Morality — 

Basis  of,  164. 

Cambridge  School's  view  of,  242. 

Danger  to,  from  reflection,  71-72. 

Doubt  in  relation  to,  71,  78-81. 

Emotional  nature  of,  172. 

Essential  characteristic  of,  71. 

Faith  demanded  for,  72,  75,  86, 
173,  191,  281-282. 

Law  of  Nature  defied  by,  77. 

Meanings  of  term,  238. 

Political  freedom  inseparable 
from,  105. 

Primitive,  high  standard  of,  161, 
241. 

Protest  of  individual  against 
absorption  in  the  universal, 
84. 

Reasonableness  of,  78. 

Religion  distinct  from,  41,  47,  50, 
202-203,  238-242 ;  in  an- 
tagonism to,  241-242 ;  iden- 
tified with,  242-243. 

Sanction  of,  in  nineteenth  century, 
271. 

Spiritual  revival  leading  to  weak- 
ening of,  220. 

Universality  of  appeal  of,  74,  97, 
104,  163. 
Mysteries,  ancient,  240. 
Mysticism — 

Certainties  in,  249,  251,  255-256. 

Elements  conducing  to,  247. 

Orthodoxy  resented  by,  179-180. 

Practical  acumen  united  with,  206. 

Self-surrender  in,  46. 

Temper  of,  172-173,  221. 
Mystics  of  twelfth  century,  10. 

National  decay.  318-319. 
Naturalism.  See  Religion — Natural. 
Naturalist  and  Individualist,  meet- 
ing-ground of,  112. 
Nature — 

Attitudes  towards,  various,  58. 
Christian      altruism,      antithesis 

with,  272. 
Convention,  antithesis  with,  216. 
Demoralisation  of  law  of,  61-63. 
Dominance  of  law  of,  33. 
Morality  as  defiance  of  law  of,  77. 
Revelation,  postulated  agreement 

with,  177,  180. 
Worship    of.      See     Religion  — 
Natural. 


INDEX 


339 


Nemesis,  doctrine  of,  38. 
Neo-Kantians,  115,  158. 
Neo-Platonists,  206,  261. 
Newman,  Cardinal,  quoted,  248. 
Nicholas  of  Cusa,  73,  112,  118,  251. 
Nietzsche,  82,  218,  305,  317. 
'*  Noblesse  oblige,"  138. 
Nominalism — 

Duns  Scotus,  influence  of,  31. 

Proofs  of  dogma,  objections   to, 
II,  166,  217. 

Revival  of,  172. 
Norse  myths,  49,  137-138. 
Novalis,  250;  cited,  283. 

Obedience  to  law,  27,  30,  132. 
Obscurantist  School,  264. 
Occam,  31,  173. 
Olearius  cited,  181,  184. 
Omnipotence  and  its  self-imposed 

restraint,  134-136. 
Ontology — 

Logic  identified  with,  120. 

Nineteenth  century  study  of,  105, 
108. 
Opportunism,  265. 

Paganism — 

Blitheness  of,  non-existent,  29. 

Weakness  of,  9. 
Pain,  problem  of,  98. 
Panethelism,  124. 
Pantheism — 

Deistic  tendency  towards,  97,  175- 

Effect  of,  on  zest  of  life,  225. 

Positivism  not  to  be  distinguished 
from,  112. 

Rationalistic,  11. 
Papacy — 

Cynical  acceptance  of,  64,  277. 

Italianising  of,  148. 

Mediseval  and  later,  59,  64. 
Patterson,  Prof.  Pringle,  quoted,  43, 

84. 
Patriotism,  rudimentary,  235. 
Pelagius,  31. 
Persecution — 

Disappearance    of,    almost    uni- 
versal, 150. 

Rationale  of,  57,  148. 
Pessimism — 

Mystic,  256. 

Origin  and  meaning  of,  303-304. 

Philosophic,  22. 
Peter  Lombard,  170. 
Philo,  3. 
Philosophers,  rule  of  the,  14. 


Philosophy — 
All-inclusive  claimsof,  abandoned, 

203. 
Function  and  limitations  of,  202, 

313- 
Greek  schools  of,  detached  from 

common  life,  205. 
Pessimism  of,  22. 
Popular,   of  eighteenth   century, 

210. 
Religion  distinct  from,  47,   152- 

153. 
Religion    identified    with  —  first 
attempt,   9-10,    17 ;    second 
attempt,  13,  17;  byErigena, 
169. 
State  approval  of,  222. 
Superficial  character  of,  167. 
Surrender    of,    to    autocracy    in 

seventeenth  century,  263. 
Unselfishness  of,  so-called,  236. 
Philosophy    of   religion,    need    of 

formulating,  8. 
Plato,   61,   74,    216;  civic  scheme 
of,  15,  22,  205  ;  supersensuous 
sanctions   of,    28 ;    system   of, 
109,  159,  168-169,  299- 
Platonism — 
Later,  10,  61. 

Stoicism  in  alliance  with,  261. 
Plotinus,  II,  98,  206. 
Political  langu^e  v.  ordinary  prac- 
tice, 293. 
Pomponatius,  302. 
Positivism — 
Appeal  of,  124. 
Leibnitz'  rejection  of,  100. 
Pantheism  not  to  be  distinguished 
from,  112. 
Practical     and    speculative    know- 
ledge, separation  of,  11. 
Practice  ahead  of  moral  rules,  162. 
Predestination,  Calvinistic,  249. 
Priestly  caste,  rise  of,  38. 
Prodicus,  216. 
Protagoras,  214,  216. 
Protestant  Churches — 

Deferment    of    promised     good 

taught  by,  289. 
Nature  of,  32. 

Orthodoxy  demanded  in,  12,  93, 
172-173,  207-208,  221,  277. 
Quietism  of,  250. 
Religion  as  defined  by,  238. 
Secular    power    exalted  by,    96, 
207. 
Punishment,  eternal,  dogma  of,  252. 


340 


THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


Purpose  in  the  world,  78,  84,  261  ; 
dilemma  as  to,  318. 

Quakers,  179. 

Rational  as  the  real,    114;    Neo- 

Kantian  sense  of,  157-158. 
Rationalism — 

Characteristics  of,  175-176. 

Eighteenth  century,  103-104. 

Leibnitzian,  13. 

Mediaeval,  76. 

Quarrel  of,  with  Religion,  242. 
Rauh,  268. 
Raymund  of  Sabunde,  172,  177,  178, 

182. 
Realism — 

Comtian,  124. 

Mediaeval,  190 ;  revival  of,  140. 
Reality- 
Church's  conception  of,  153. 

Modern  conception  of,  116. 

Rational  the  real.    See  Rational. 

Unknowable  the  real,  160. 
Reason — 

Age  of,  99,  154-155,  232. 

Catholic  and  Protestant  antagon- 
ism to,  181. 

Comprehension     of     all     things 
under,  158. 

Hegelian  use  of  term,  114. 

Humanistic  and  Stoic  interpreta- 
tion of  term,  299-302. 

Mediaeval  Church,  in,  168-169. 

Province  of,  16,  24. 

Romantic  significance  of  term,  in 
nineteenth  century,  265. 

Rule  of,  supposed  results  of,  156. 

Unconscious,  157. 

Unsocial  influence  of,  163. 
Reasons,  superficiality  of,  167. 
Recompense       doctrine,       rational 

necessity  of,  42-43. 
Reconciliation  of  divine  and  human, 

4,  7.. 
Reformation  of  sixteenth  century — 
Ages  of  Paith  dating  from,  289. 
Augustinianism  revived  by,  263. 
Cause  of,  148. 

Renaissance  in  relation  to,  219. 
^  Results  of,  32,  60. 
Reformed    churches.     See  Protest- 
ant. 
Regimentation  of  society,  243-244. 
Reincarnation,  doctrine  of,  302. 
Relativism,      sophistic       tendency 
towards,  217-218. 


Relativity — of  truth,    166,  283  ;  of 

knowledge,  298-299. 
Religion — 
Architectonic    science,    as,    186, 

269. 
Christian.     See  Christianity. 
Christian  enlistment  of,  in  cause 

of  common  life,  139. 
Democratic  ideal  dependent  on, 

131,  324-325.  . 
Emotional  element  in,  239-240. 
Essential  elements  of,  39. 
Exoteric  and  esoteric,  65, 275-279. 
Favouritism  demand  of,  47,   50, 

139,  I53>  239-240,  258. 
Individual  recognised  by,  alone, 

.239- 

Individualist  nature  of,  charge  as 
to,  89. 

Interest  in,  revived,  83. 

Morality  identified  with,  242-243. 

Morality  distinct  from,  41,  47,  50, 
202-203,  238-242;  in  an- 
tagonism with,  241-242. 

Natural,  97,  109,  175-176,  265  j 
origin  of,  240. 

Origin  of,  and  impulse  to,   104, 

132,  134,  139-140,  240,  258. 
Paradox  of,  252. 
Partizanship  of  God  claimed  by, 

258. 

Personal,  distinction  of,  from 
dogmatic,  38, 

Philosophy,  relations  with.  See 
Philosophy. 

Protestant  definition  of,  238. 

Rational,  175-176,  250. 

Science  and,  attempts  at  con- 
ciliation of,  178. 

Social  function  of,  165. 

Stages  of  development  in — fear  of 
the  unknown,  37 ;  recog- 
nition of  divine  protector, 
37-38,  239  ;  CO  -  operation 
with  divine  purpose,  38-43, 
50-52,  253 ;  self-surrender, 
44-46,  51-52. 

State  opposed  by,  241-242. 

Theology  in  contrast  with,  49. 

Threefold  work  of,  165,  184-185. 

Truth  of  any,  witnesses  to,  166. 

Utilitarian  character  of,  90,  165, 
166. 

Wars  of,  208. 
Renaissance — 

Influence  of,  100,  219-221. 

Relativity  doctrine  of,  173. 


INDEX 


341 


Renan,  321. 

Republicanism,  irreconcilable  oppo- 

sites  in,  234-236. 
Responsibility,  shifting  of,  148-149. 
Revivals,      three,      of     eighteenth 

century,  208. 
Revolution,  French.     See  French. 
Revolutions — 
Origin  of,  16. 
Progress  of,  64. 
Richelieu,  248. 

•  Right  to  do  what  is  right,'  162. 
Righteousness  in  scheme  of  things, 

problem  as  to,  302. 
Rights  rather  than  duties,  284-286. 
Roman  Church — 

Counter- Reformation,  12. 
Discipline  rather  than  dogma  the 

preoccupation  of,  8. 
Exoteric  side  of,  277. 
Gnostic  School  contrasted  with, 

262. 
Jesuit  Order,  dissolution  of,  14, 

222. 
Mediaeval — 

Breadth  of  interests  of,  58,  60, 

147-148,  207,  276. 
Democratic  character   of  hier- 
archy of,  289. 
Enforcement  of  appeal  of,  75- 

76,  288-289. 
Twofold  aspect  of,  167-169. 
Protestant  bodies  compared  with, 

250. 
Secular  mission  of,  58-60. 
Roman  Empire — 

Christianity,     attitude     towards, 

217. 
Compromise  between  rival  sove- 
reignties, 219. 
Individuality    fostered    in,    217, 
240. 
Romanes,  125. 
Romantic  era,  1 15. 
Romantic  schools,  230. 
Rousseau,   13,   137,  226,  278,  328  ; 
system   of,   16,   103,   109,   156, 
176;    influence   of,   on   Kant, 
104. 

Sceptical  School,  205. 

Scepticism,  27. 

SchelHng,  11,  98,  260;  system  of, 

117,  119;  quoted,  253. 
Schlegel,  102. 
Scholasticism — 
Arguments  of,  166. 


Scholasticism — continued. 
Logic  and  dialectic  of,  merit  of,  1 7 1 
Method  of,  10. 
Nature  of,  263. 
Schopenhauer,  124,  211,  305. 
Science — 

Function  of,  313. 
Method  of,  157. 
Scotus,  Duns.     See  Duns. 
Scotus,  Erigena.     See  Erigena. 
Self-consciousness,  204. 
Self-realisation — 

Baffled  efforts  for,  213,  234. 
Christian  recognition  of  demand 

for,  34. 
Leibnitzian  theory  as  to,  103. 
Self-surrender    not    incompatible 
with,  41. 
Self-surrender.       {See    also    Devo- 
tion)— 
Conscience'  sake,  for,  34. 
Disillusionment,  through,  23. 
Extreme  view  of,  327. 
Love,  of,  26. 
Religious,  44-46,  51-52. 
Self-realisation  not  incompatible 

with,  41. 
Universal  desire  for,  85,  189. 
Utilitarian  state,  not   to  be  ex- 
pected by,  187. 
Selfishness  and  unselfishness,  use  of 

terms,  228. 
Seneca,  175,  261. 
Sensationalism,  1 18. 
Septimius  Severus,  262. 
Shaftesbury,  103. 
Shaw,  Bernard,  quoted,  189. 
Sidgwick,    Professor    H.,    quoted, 

121  ;  cited,  162. 
Smith,  Adam,  103. 
Socialism,  289,  324. 
Socinian  movement,  181-182. 
Socrates,     influence    of,    27  -  28 ; 
system  of,  159,  215,  299  ;  death 
of,   204-205 ;   Kant  compared 
with,  218. 
Sophists,  109,  176,  214,  216,  218. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  250,  306  ;  quoted, 

123 ;  cited,  161. 
Spinoza,  248,  305 ;  system  of,  33, 
96-98,    103,    112,    155,    253; 
temperament  of,  210. 
State- 
Church  and,  illogical  relation  of, 

in  England,  223. 
Conformity  not  motive  the  con- 
cern of,  227. 


342 


THEOLOGY  AND  PROGRESS 


State  — continued. 

Duty  to,  as  urged  by  Huxley  and 

Mill,  141-143- 
Family  the  origin  of,  234. 
Freedom  of  individuals  in,  224. 
'  Godless '     citizen,     fiction     of, 

203-204. 
Morality  of,  22,  200. 
Origin  of,  theories  as  to,  215. 
Philosopher-king  theory,  215. 
Post-Reformation,  basis  of,   195- 

196. 
Regimentation  of,  243-244. 
Religion  in  opposition  to,  241-242. 
Rise  and  fall  of  ignorance  as  to 

causes  of,  92. 
Secularisation  of,  223. 
Self-preservation  the  aim  of,  6'^^ 

64,  85,  149,  194. 
Supremacy  of,  23. 
Theory  of,  Machiavellian,  62-63. 
Voluntarism,    disappearance    of, 

197. 
Stirling,  Dr.,  quoted,  119,  120. 
Stirmer  quoted,  8 1. 
Stoicism — 

Arguments  of,  102. 
Classification  of,  45. 
Domestic    and    social    side    dis- 
dained by,  27,  205,  311. 
Dualism  latent  in,  272. 
Epicureanism     compared     with, 

307. 

Naturalism  of,  109,  112. 

Platonism,  alliance  with,  261. 

*  Reason '  as  understood  by,  299. 

Spinoza's  ethics  touched  with,  33. 
Sub-conscious  motive,  16,  20,  57. 
Subjectivism.     See  Individualism, 
Sympathy,  103. 

Tacitus  quoted,  226. 
Teleology — 

Christian,  4,  135. 

Leibnitzian,  99. 

Mechanism  and,  conciliation  of, 
178. 

Mechanism  as  supplanting,  96. 

Scientific    view    penetrated    by, 
no. 
Templars,  260,  277. 
Terms,  popular  sense  of,  37. 
Tertullian,  3,  31,  262. 
Theory  and  practice — 

Divorce  of — Mediaeval,  31,    60  ; 
modem,  71,  78-81,  125. 

Reaction  between,  80. 


Theology  in  contrast  with  Religion, 
49. 

Theresa,  St.,  45. 

Thing-in-itself  theory,  115. 

Thomas,  Thomism.     See  Aquinas. 

Thought  without  thinker,  120. 

Thuggee,  241. 

Toland,  97,  175. 

Tolstoy  cited,  197,  226. 

Trinitarian  dogma,  48,  260. 

Truth- 
Antecedent  world  of,  theory  as 

to,  257. 
Arrogant   pretensions  regarding, 

166. 
Distinct  aspects  of,  152-153. 
Double    truth    theory,    30,    177- 

178,  180,  181,  208. 
Relativity  of,  166,  283. 
Test  of,  in  mystical  tradition,  173. 

Tyranny,  forms  of,  105. 

Ultimate  sanctions,  13-14,  21. 

Unbelief,  religious,   immediate  re- 
sults of,  306-307. 

Unconscious,     the,     in      Fichtian 
system,  116. 

Unity- 
Provisional  hypothesis  of,  257. 
Theories  as  to,  313. 

Universal  Reason  as  ultimate  sanc- 
tion, 14. 

Universal  v,  particular,  6,  II,  21. 

Universalism  of  Mediaeval  Church, 
61. 

Unknowability    of   world    powers, 

93-94- 
Unknowable,  the,  159-160. 
Unknown,   surrender  to  the,  255- 

266. 
Unselfishness — 
Christian,  236. 
Contract    method     incompatible 

with,  295. 
Indefensibility     of,     except     on 

Christian  hypothesis,  288. 
Meaning  of  term,  228. 
Primitive,  235. 
Source  of,  236. 
Utilitarianism — 
Aristotelian,  28,  33. 
Duns  Scotus,  of,  32. 
Mediaeval,  30. 

Platonic  abandonment  of,  28. 
Standard    of    value    in    present 

lectures,  55,  88. 
Theological,  233,  264. 


INDEX 


343 


Utopians — 

Miscalculations  of,  192-193,  197. 
Personal    element    atrophied    in 

republics  of,  289. 
Primitive  sanctions,  reversion  to, 

161. 
Serfdom  contemplated  by,  231. 

Value- 
Catholicity  a  test  of,  274,  275. 

Sense  of,  84,  282. 
Values — 

Christian  standard  of,  188. 

Humanism  a  fixing  of,  218. 

Modern  acceptance  of  standard 
of,  no,  273. 
Vanini,  96. 
Victorines,  172,  179. 
Virtue — 

Meanings  of  term,  27. 

Pleasure  in  relation  to,  28. 

Reward,  its  own,  theory  as  to, 
302. 
Volition  as  original  Being,  118,  119. 
{See  also  Will-to-live.) 


Volney,  15;  cited,  155. 
Voltaire,  13,  137. 

Wallace,    Prof.,    quoted,    60,   72, 

1Z' 
Weigel,  179. 

Wells,  H.  G.,  quoted,  215. 
Wesley,  John,  250. 
Westermarck  cited,  160. 
Will  and  Idea  in  conflict,  135. 
Will  of  the  people.     See  Democ- 
racy. 
Will-to-live,  90,  114. 
Willert,  Mr.,  quoted,  156. 
William  of  Occam,  31,  173. 
Work  and  worth,  demand  for,  91, 

131  ;    Christianity   in    relation 

to,  140-141,  144. 
World-spirit  as  object  of  worship, 

63- 
Wundt  cited,  31. 

Xenophanes,  system  of,  261. 

Zeno,  176. 


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